The Incendiaries

A powerful, darkly glittering novel of violence, love, faith, and loss, as a young woman at an elite American university is drawn into acts of domestic terrorism by a cult tied to North Korea Phoebe Lin and Will Kendall meet their first month at prestigious Edwards University Phoebe is a glamorous girl who doesn t tell anyone she blames herself for her mother s recent death Will is a misfit scholarship boy who transfers to Edwards from Bible college, waiting tables to get by What he knows for sure is that he loves Phoebe Grieving and guilt ridden, Phoebe is increasingly drawn into a religious group a secretive extremist cult founded by a charismatic former student, John Leal He has an enigmatic past that involves North Korea and Phoebe s Korean American family Meanwhile, Will struggles to confront the fundamentalism he s tried to escape, and the obsession consuming the one he loves When the group bombs several buildings in the name of faith, killing five people, Phoebe disappears Will devotes himself to finding her, tilting into obsession himself, seeking answers to what happened to Phoebe and if she could have been responsible for this violent act The Incendiaries is a fractured love story and a brilliant examination of the minds of extremist terrorists, and of what can happen to people who lose what they love most. Read The Incendiaries – kino-fada.fr This novel about a young woman becoming immersed with a cult is beautifully written and full of propulsive tension Will, as the primary narrator, is a fascinating character It is clear he sees the world in a very narrow way, to his detriment and also Phoebe s, his girlfriend for most of the novel When focused on Will s POV the novel soars It is uneven though when focusing on John Leal and Phoebe and that s a shame as they are both integral to the novel s climax I would have loved to see This novel about a young woman becoming immersed with a cult is beautifully written and full of propulsive tension Will, as the primary narrator, is a fascinating character It is clear he sees the world in a very nar...Hip hop pulsed, rolled Pale limbs shone The room clattered into motion Inanimate objects verbed So many inanimate objects did so much verbing Limbs throbbed Fingers flew over keyboards Eyes rolled Pages flipped My brain wondered why everyone liked this book so much Revi...I don t know if I can actually write a review of this book because all of my feelings about it and there are so many are extremely personal My experience with this book is unlikely to be universal, but it s the only one I have to write about It wouldn t be fair for me to start off with all of my own stuff that I bring to this book, so I ll start with the most objective review I can provide which is admittedly not very objective for all the reasons below This is an ambitious and impressive I don t know if I can actually write a review of this book because all of my feelings about it and there are s...I have many thoughts about this book and I am very conflicted about my feelings and my rating As is customary in such cases, here are my thoughts, first in list form thenelaborated Pros prose the interesting way R O Kwon plays with perspective the subversion of tropesCons plot charactersThis book is told from three perspectives Will, who has lost his faith in god and his plan for his life, his girlfriend Phoebe, who lost her faith in her piano talent and her mother, and John, I have many thoughts about this book and I am very conflicted about my feelings and my rating As is customary in such cases, here are my thoughts, first in list form thenelaborated Pros prose the interesting way R O Kwon plays with perspective the subversion of tropesCons plot charactersThis book is told from three perspectives Will, who has lost his faith in god and his plan for his life, his girlfriend Phoebe, who lost her faith in her piano talent and her mother, and John, the enigmatic cult leader whose cult Phoebe starts following Or,exactly, the story is told from these perspectives as Will imagines them I loved the way this worked out and I love the extra layer of i...Intriguing, tragic, odd.Will, white , no longer believes in God No longer believes in Christianity He left his Bible College for Edwards University He s struggling with identity.Phoebe Korean , no longer believes in playing the piano Why continue if can t be a brilliant pianist Will meets Phoebe at Edwards He does believe in Phoebe Rather he becomes obsessed Enter John Leal, leader of the Jejah a religious cult group Phoebe gets drawn in Will is worried for Phoebe.Both Intriguing, tragic, odd.Will, white , no longer believes in God No longer believes in Christianity He left his Bible College for Edwards University He s struggling with identity.Phoebe Korean , no longer believes in playing the piano Why continue if can t be a brilliant pianist Will meets Phoebe at Edwards He does believe in Phoebe Rather he becomes obsessed Enter John Leal, leader of the Jejah a religious cult group Phoebe gets drawn in Will is worried for Phoebe.Both Phoebe and Will have secrets, and are dealing with loss Both are struggling with their faith They re vulnerable in the way young college coming of age students often are This book was a combination of.a little confusing as to what I m most suppose to take away from this novel , mysterious eeriecreepy ...While The Incendiaries presented an engaging story, it is bogged down by the writing Ornate descriptions and archaic word choices detracted from the storyline Passages like Now that I had time, the hours felt like a wasteland I crossed it, back and forth Old ambitions flopped like stranded fish It could be a sign a Daedalus thread, the implied promise of return The coarse hair strewn in Phoebe s sheets, bijou...I ll start by saying the version I read is an arc so maybe a lot has changed or will change in publication, but I m a bit confused by all the glowing reviews of this book I kept looking to the back cover re reading the description waiting for the story I ve been promised to occur Finally, with about 30 pages left it happens Sort of The bombing happens, true, and Will does look for Phoebe, for like a day Most of the book is spe...I wanted to grab a copy of this book as it sounded so, so good, but I somehow managed to not download it time, and it was archived on NetGalley before I could get it I knew I still wanted to read it, so I decided to purchase it, and having now read it, I am pleased I didn t just move on This book blew me away One of the best books of the year, in my opinion I absolutely loved it Because of that I didn t mind purchasing my copy, it will take pride of place on my bookshelf An astonishing I wanted to grab a copy of this book as it sounded so, so good, but I somehow managed to not download it time, and it was archived on NetGalley before I could get it I knew I still wanted to read it, so I decided to purchase it, and having now read it, I am pleased I didn t just move on This book blew me away One of the best books of the year, in my opinion I absolutely loved it Because of that I didn t mind purchasing my copy, it will take pride of place on my ...The Incendiaries is a sharp little novel as hard to ignore as a splinter in your eye You keep blinking at these pages, struggling to bring the story into some comforting focus, convinced you can look past its unsettling intimations But R.O Kwon, the 35 year old Korean American author, doesn t make it easy to get her debut out of your system.At its core, The Incendiaries is about religious fervor, which has long functioned as America s nuclear fuel useful and energizing, except when ...This is an incredibly strong book, but it s also deeply uncomfortable to read.This book follows one character s descent into a cult, told from the perspective of her boyfriend Kwon does an AMAZING job of simultaneously capturing what draws Phoebe towards the cult s leader, John Leal, and highlighting how creepy and invasive the cult leader is It forces you to empathize with Phoebe while maintaining awareness of how manipulative John Leal is Because of ...

• English
• 19 April 2019
R.O. Kwon
• Hardcover
• 214 pages
• 0735213895
• R.O. Kwon
• The Incendiaries