"A prison like no other.
It gives life.
It deals death.
it watches all."
What if the prison had a name? What if that prison's name was more than Metro City Prison for the Criminally Gifted, what if that prison's name was Incarceron, and what if it could speak to you?
What if the prison wasn't just a building. What if it was a being, and it controlled everything that went on inside it. This amazing, Fantasy Steampunk book by Catherine Fisher gives us those questions, and so much more.
I will explain. No. Sum up, for there is too much.
Incarceron is a prison like no other. It has been sealed for centuries, the door closed on its forests of metal, its cells, its cities, its mountain ranges, and only one man, as the legend goes, has ever escaped.
Finn is a seventeen year old prisoner who can't remember his childhood. He just woke up, he claims, and believes he came from Outside Incarceron. He's determined to escape, even though most of Incarceron's prisoners don't believe that the Outside...even exists.
And then Finn discovers a crystal key, and through it meets a girl, named Claudia.
Claudia lives Outside. Her father is the Warden of Incarceron and Claudia is doomed to an arranged marriage. If she helps Finn escape, she'll need his help in return.
But there's more to Incarceron than meets the eye; twists, turns, quakes, upheavals that nobody would ever expect.
Because Incarceron is alive.
What an adventure, this book. Just wow. Characters you grow to love. Finn, Claudia, Kiero, Attia, all of them. Gentle Jared, mysterious Warden, snobby Caspar and his mother Queen Sia. What better people to spend four hundred pages with?
The prose was lovely. Absolutely lovely. And the ending tied up just enough and left just enough open for the sequel, Sapphique, to keep you wanting more and yet content that at least this phase of the story is done.
I have no negative comments. I honestly found nothing wrong with this book. One or two confusing POV changes, but I'm putting that down to me reading while tired, because this book is pristine.
Five out of five stars, and high on the recommendations list.
Now for Sapphique.
May your pen stay swift and your sword never drift,
~Tiffaniey
