Incarceron by Catherine Fisher

Incarceron: Set in the future where a prison has been built in an unknown location to hold all the uh, "undesirables" of society. It was meant to become a paradise for those who lived there, except that that experiment failed more than a hundred years ago, and it's now become nothing less than hell. Outside Incarceron everyone's lives follow what they call "Protocol", despite having advanced very far in technology everyone is now stuck in the past due to a decree made by a king many years ago. Nothing progresses, everything stays the same, and from the look of it only the royalty likes is this way.
Finn is inside Incarceron, Claudia is out. Claudia believes Finn could have an immense impact on the world outside of Incarceron, problem is that since the beginning of the experiment no one has gotten inside of Incarceron, and no one has ever come out. I've given it a five star rating, and I don't do that easily.



Spoilers ahead: I absolutely fell in love with this book, it was the kind of book that forced me to ignore the fact that it was four in the morning and I still hadn't gone to bed. First of all, I really loved the Prison in all it's scary, insane ways. I love the fact that it speaks and that it's developed the desire to basically get outside of itself. It almost makes me pity it despite the fact that it's been extremely cruel to its inmates over the past century or so.
Claudia was wonderful to read. I've read so many books over time where I detest our female protagonists, there have been so many times I've wanted to reach in there and slap some sense into her (Bella Swan, I'm looking at you). This was never the case with Claudia. If she did something, it was with good reason, if people thought of her a certain way, it was also with good reason. People thought her a spoiled brat at times, and that's because she certainly was. At other times people thought her to be brave, and that's also because she certainly was. She was a whole character that wasn't Oh So Awesome You Automatically Wish You Were Her. I also loved her bond with Jared, and I loved that others around her had their little assumptions about them despite their being no evidence for any of it.
As for Finn.. eh, I didn't care for him so much, but I found it really interesting to see how his "friends" treated him, and how he called them out on it. I constantly wanted to smack both Keiro and Gildas for their asshattery, but I'm glad in the end Finn did it for me. Well- he did it more on Keiro than Gildas, but still.
As for the other, minor characters, there's so much more I want to know about so many of them. Sapphique, for example, Queen Sia (what is up with that crazy woman?), and the Prison itself, actually. How was created? When did things start to go wrong?... and why do I hear a female voice in my head when it talks?
My only complaint is that some parts of Incarceron were really strangely described, so much so that it was hard for me to picture those parts. I'm particularly thinking of the part where Finn finally meets the Prison. I kept developing an image in my head and suddenly Fisher would throw in a sentence there that would tell me the image in my head was totally wrong. This happened rarely though, so it wasn't that big of a deal. I'm just really big on description.
The book ends on somewhat of a cliffhanger, but a satisfying one at the least. I guarantee you I'll be at the local bookstore on December 28th for Sapphique (even though it's already out in the UK, I want to wait for the cover that matches my copy of Incarceron). I'd recommend this book to anyone who enjoys dystopias, strong female protagonists, complex characters, and a very well done plot. If not, then er, I also have a list of really bad books I could recommend?