Week Five Book Four: Incarceron

Well, this book took me two weeks to get through...which puts me behind on my challenge already...aaah!

The book Incarceron is about a young guy named Finn who lives inside a prison, Incarceron. Although everyone tells him otherwise, he believes that he was born Outside (in other words, outside of the prison). He is determined to escape, just like the legend of Sapphique, who supposedly escaped Incarceron with only the sacrifice of a finger. In the meantime, Claudia, a wealthy young girl living on the Outside, is dreading her impending marriage to Prince Caspar. When she discovers a crystal key and can start communicating with Finn, she is determined to free him from Incarceron and save herself from marrying.

I found this book very confusing. It's been getting RAVE reviews, which maybe set my expectations too high, but I was lost for about the first 200 pages in terms of setting and situation. I felt that the book assumed the readers could follow it and therefore didn't set up the necessary background. I was just dragging my feet to finish it and am so relieved that I finally did. I won't be reading the sequel (Sapphique) any time soon! This is definitely for the hard-core fantasy reader--too bizarre for me!