Published: January 2010 by Dial
Format: Hardback, 442 pages
First Reviewed: July 2010
Buy: Barnes & Noble//Books-A-Million//Amazon//Book Depository
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A prison like no other. It gives life. It deals death. It watches all.
Incarceron is a prison unlike any other: Its inmates live not only in cells, but also in metal forests, dilapidated cities, and unbounded wilderness. The prison has been sealed for centuries, and only one man, legend says, has ever escaped. Finn, a seventeen-year-old prisoner, can’t remember his childhood and believes he came from Outside Incarceron. He’s going to escape, even though most inmates don’t believe that Outside even exists. And then Finn finds a crystal key and through it, a girl named Claudia.
Claudia claims to live Outside—her father is the Warden of Incarceron and she’s doomed to an arranged marriage. If she helps Finn escape, she will need his help in return. But they don’t realize that there is more to Incarceron than meets the eye. Escape will take their greatest courage and cost far more than they know.
Because Incarceron is alive.
Claudia claims to live Outside—her father is the Warden of Incarceron and she’s doomed to an arranged marriage. If she helps Finn escape, she will need his help in return. But they don’t realize that there is more to Incarceron than meets the eye. Escape will take their greatest courage and cost far more than they know.
Because Incarceron is alive.
Rating: 1/5
YOU! The person writing this! You have got to stop buying books based off the cover! Okay...I read the description too, but in all honesty...I was dead by the first chapter...
I think the setting would have been good if it was explained much better. I never had a clear picture of anything. Neither Incarceron or the Outside. The setting, just looking from the outside and not just reading it, is perfect. I really wish there was more detail about it to really get the tone for this. Although, I didn't like the whole "we act like we're from the old times, but we have this amazing technology." That just didn't work for me.
I'm not a fan of any of the characters. I never felt connected to a single one. The main characters, Finn and Claudia, were boring and flat. None of the characters had any personality, and sometimes I felt characters popped out of nowhere. I also felt there were too many, and even their names were confusing at times. For one, they weren't...consistent. The majority of them were strange names, and then all of a sudden Fisher used Claudia and Jared. *head scratcher* And for two, some names were similar and I would get confused on who was who. I just didn't like the characters at all. I also couldn't picture them.
*headdesk* Alright, so I get that everyone uses commas differently, but at least stay consistent. She had many missing commas. She always had a bunch of telling, literally. She'd stop in between dialogue to say, "He had blue eyes and long blond hair." Really? You stopped dialogue in the middle of the book to tell us about a character that we have seen throughout the first half? The pacing was also all over the place. Some places were way too drawn out, while others were glazed over when they should have been more important, judging by the plot. Oh, and if I see the phrase "For a moment" one more time, I'm going to throw something. And then she formatted her dialogue like this: He said, "blah blah." And while that's not incorrect, it just drove me up the wall. Oh my gosh, and the adverbs! Do you know how many adverbs there were? I get that they're okay sometimes, but I even counted one page, and got five. Five! In one page (front; not including back). That's too many. She lacked a lot of detail because of it. Okay, one more thing and then I'm done...the language. It was not consistent at all. It was modern at times and then..."medievalish." I could never grasp it, and it threw me off.
The plot that pitched to the readers = Fantastic! The plot that was actually written...not so good. I never understood what was going on. It was slow and fast at the same time. It seemed to jump around a lot, especially between the characters (it's in third person, but still changes points of view between Finn and Claudia...at random times it seemed). It could have been really good if it was handled better. I really have nothing else to say about the plot...it just wasn't attention-grabbing enough for me. And that's such a shame because the summary and the idea of this is wonderful.
Alright, so, again, I feel terrible for having nothing good to say about this book. I know the author worked hard on it, but it just didn't work out. Maybe it just wasn't my genre...although I don't know why because the premise is something I would love. But I've read other reviews, and some people love it, so maybe try a couple of chapters before you read it.
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