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A review by witmol
The Incendiaries by R.O. Kwon
dark
slow-paced
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? No
2.5
Kwon achieves what she sets out to write: a twisted love story where the writing alternates between fluid and muddled to create the conditions for confusion and captivation, much like how a cult develops. The narrative swings among different time periods, including snippets of memory, and is told from a combination of third- and first-person 'reimagined' (you find out how and why by the end), which further disconcerts the reader.
This technique, while clever on the author's part, is extremely irritating and disrupted the flow of the narrative, so the story ended up being a lot slower than its low page count suggests. Also, I disliked all the characters and sympathised with so few of them (and even then only for a moment), and that made the novel hard to read.
The two irksome main characters plod towards inevitable doom and I cared less at the end than I did at the beginning.
+half a star for mention of pu'er tea.
This technique, while clever on the author's part, is extremely irritating and disrupted the flow of the narrative, so the story ended up being a lot slower than its low page count suggests. Also, I disliked all the characters and sympathised with so few of them (and even then only for a moment), and that made the novel hard to read.
The two irksome main characters plod towards inevitable doom and I cared less at the end than I did at the beginning.
+half a star for mention of pu'er tea.
Content Warnings
Minor: Suicidal thoughts, Violence, and Religious bigotry