Incendiary (Hollow Crown)

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This is my absolute favourite kind of fantasy book – one with captivating characters, fascinating worldbuilding and fast-paced, heart-in-your-mouth action. I read your book in march and now I’m reading it again; I loved the story, everything was so catchy and I couldn’t stop reading at night.

The book feels intoxicating with endlessly beautiful language and creative touches that really bring this intricate world to life. Every character we get introduced too furthers the story line in some way and the author makes it almost impossible for you to predict who you can trust. She uses “would of / should of” instead of “would have / should have”, she doesn’t parse her sentences in clauses using commas, and so on. The Whispers may have rescued Renata from the palace years ago, but she cannot escape their mistrust and hatred–or the overpowering memories of the hundreds of souls she turned “hollow” during her time in the palace.But even leaving aside the psychological issues, she and her buddies (Jasper, Petra, Butcher) all drink way too much (and, in some cases, consume too many drugs): it may be true to life but is also boring as hell. It is an excellent start to a new and exciting YA fantasy series, and I can’t wait to get my hands on the next book! The first one is a good idea -- new information about 'May Day' comes to light -- but what he does with it (the plan is for Jasper and Petra to get it published in their newspaper) is just ridiculous. I hoped against hope that she would not be devoured by their dysfunction, but that wasn’t the story you wanted to tell.

It also falls into the trap a lot of slow paced books do, where the ending is rushed and then it feels like it ends on a really strange point because the author has taken too much time on buildup. There are several major elements to Incendiary, the wonderful book Chris Cleave wrote well before he became known for Little Bee. You might remember I chose Incendiary to be my book when I was on Dubai Eye this week as the book champion. Take that personal journey away and it would be like trying build our identity, our very selves, out of rumour and dreams. In seeing her flawed and floundering, it is impossible not to think about how the choices we make are based on what we know, what we’ve learned.

The most poignant thing for me is that she sees the boy in her kitchen, chatting away and pretends to tuck him in, when of course he isn’t there.

Incendiary 's claim on the imagination, its literary power, if it can be said to have any, is its narrator's voice. Now, having just finished Incendiary, I think I’ve no choice but to be a Chris Cleave pusher all around!It's one of the other rare powerful scenes when Butcher describes the moment when it dawned on him that he and his wife came from such very different worlds -- but powerful doesn't mean it fits: Butcher's class-issues, like the class-issues throughout, the novel seem largely irrelevant. There are several actions that could trigger this block including submitting a certain word or phrase, a SQL command or malformed data.