“Only the man who has known freedom
Can define his prison.” – 3.5/5 stars!

Attention! This book contains: wedding dresses, intricate keys, mysterious tattoos, baby foxes, keys, eagles, illusions, lost princes and brotherhood.

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…

I have a special place in my heart for dystopian young adult books of the early 2000’s and 2010’s! It was such a magical era for dystopian books, and I don’t want to lose that magic so I added a lot of series to my TBR… including this one.

My thoughts on Incarceron are not very easy to explain but I’ll try my best! The execution of this book was not my favorite for two reasons: it’s difficult to visualize what the author is trying to transmit and the story is a bit slow paced. But with that said, I think the plot and concept behind this book is very original and different.

There were some moments in here that I had to reread a few times because I couldn’t visualize what was happening. And sometimes I just accepted I wasn’t going to understand and I moved on… so that was a down point for me.

The characters were a bit flat, but I still liked them, and there’s a small romance going on, but nothing too intense as well. The cool thing about this book is definitely the world building!I’m always a bit picky when it comes to science fiction books, but I’m glad I picked this up. It may be a little difficult to understand some parts, but I think the story is worth trying. To be completely honest, I got more interested in the story in the last third of the book, and now I’m very curious about the next book of the duology: Sapphique. I hope it’s even better than this one!

xoxo,