Review: Incarceron

Incarceron (Incarceron, Book 1) by Catherine Fisher

Synopsis: 
Incarceron — a futuristic prison, sealed from view, where the descendants of the original prisoners live in a dark world torn by rivalry and savagery. It is a terrifying mix of high technology — a living building which pervades the novel as an ever-watchful, ever-vengeful character, and a typical medieval torture chamber — chains, great halls, dungeons.

A young prisoner, Finn, has haunting visions of an earlier life, and cannot believe he was born here and has always been here. In the outer world, Claudia, daughter of the Warden of Incarceron, is trapped in her own form of prison — a futuristic world constructed beautifully to look like a past era, an imminent marriage she dreads. She knows nothing of Incarceron, except that it exists.

But there comes a moment when Finn, inside Incarceron, and Claudia, outside, simultaneously find a device — a crystal key, through which they can talk to each other. And so the plan for Finn’s escape is born …

Review:
I don’t feel too enthusiastic about writing a review for this book, and I’m not exactly sure why. Amongst all the high praise Incarceron has received, I’m sure there are the few, like me, that didn’t understand what all the buzz was about. I mean, yeah, it was a good read, but I couldn’t be the only one that felt a bit confused and utterly exhausted after finishing this story.

Designed with the idea to create an Utopian society, Incarceron is anything but a perfect world. It is a prison run by machines and thick with darkness and deceit. There is no way to escape Incarceron, and the prison has eyes everywhere.

Finn is a starseer who is haunted by visions he believes are of his life before waking up as a “cell-born” within the prison. Once he discovers a crystal key, he journeys through the prison with his oath brother and allies to find away out of Incarceron and to find answers to help explain his faded memories.

Claudia is the daughter of the Warden of Incarceron. Trained all her life to live abiding by the rules of Protocol, she is desperate to seek her own escape. Destined to become the next queen by marrying a half witted prince she does not desire, she races to figure out the mysteries of Incarceron, hoping she can find a way to break free from the unchanging Era society she is forced to exist in.

While the alternating POVs were great and added a lot of dynamic to the story, it took me a while to warm up to it. The opening scene was action packed, which I enjoyed, but I didn’t understand the why behind the idea of the outside world pretending to live in the “Era” of the 1800′s. It didn’t make sense to me that part of the book was about a time in the future that has all types of highly advanced gadget yet the characters outside of the prison are doing their best impression of Jane Austen’s characters. Why? How would that even happen?

Once I was finally able to became engrossed in the story, I hit a lull and sort of lost interest. Although the writing was very well crafted, I sometimes felt lost in most of the scenes. No matter how many times I read then re-read them, I just couldn’t imagine what was going on and this frustrated/annoyed me. I got the sense that the author was trying to be clever by fluffing up scenes with intricate details, but all it caused was a lot of confusion.

Overall, there were just too many fantastical elements involved that I just didn’t care for. I picked up on a lot of fractions in the story that I was curious about, and the characters did seem interesting, but reading Incarceron just felt like too much work. 
 
Favorite Quote

Claudia to Jared: “You should get more sleep.”

He shook his head. “While the universe is out there wheeling over me? Impossible, lady.”

Catherine Fisher
Website | goodreads

Incarceron trailer

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Posted at 9:24 pm  •  Labels: 2010, 3 stars, Book Review, Dystopian Fiction, fantasy, trailers, YA