R. O. Kwon

'Absolutely electric' Garth Greenwell 'A major talent' Financial Times 'Reminiscent of Donna Tartt's The Secret History' New Yorker Phoebe Lin and Will Kendall fall in love at 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 from Bible college. But a charismatic former student draws Phoebe into his cult - an extremist group with secretive ties to North Korea. 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, discovering how far we can go when we lose what we love. 'An important new writer' The Times 'R. O. Kwon is the real deal' Lauren Groff

The Incendiaries

Now a National Bestseller "Religion, politics, and love collide in this slim but powerful novel reminiscent of Donna Tartt's The Secret History, with menace and mystery lurking in every corner." --People Magazine "The most buzzed-about debut of the summer, as it should be...unusual and enticing ... The Incendiaries arrives at precisely the right moment." --The Washington Post "Radiant...A dark, absorbing story of how first love can be as intoxicating and dangerous as religious fundamentalism." --New York Times Book Review A powerful, darkly glittering novel of violence, love, faith, and loss, as a young woman at an elite American university is drawn into a cult's acts of terrorism. Phoebe Lin and Will Kendall meet in 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 drawn into a secretive cult founded by a charismatic former student with an enigmatic past. When the group commits a violent act in the name of faith, Will finds himself struggling to confront a new version of the fanaticism he's worked so hard to escape. Haunting and intense, The Incendiaries is a fractured love story that explores what can befall those who lose what they love most.

A Novel

Colton Ray

I'm still mulling over how I feel about this one. I wish it could have been more. The premise was engaging, but the intensely introspective nature and cold writing style made it tough to see through to the end. I almost wish for a sequel that would tie up some of the loose ends.

I read this at 18 and liked it a lot. It also brought me out of my reading slump. I will probably have a different opinion at 24, but I’d like to leave it as how I felt. 

jannah

Moray Lyle McIntosh

In the Incendiaries RO Kwan braves the thorny issues of faith and fanaticism and the intersections between the two. She approaches her subject from three directions through its three narrators, Will, Phoebe and John. Will is floundering having lost his strong, teenage faith in Christianity, guilt-ridden Phoebe is drawn ever deeper into the mysterious cult-like group called Jejah and John manipulates and inspires faith as Jejah’s charismatic leader.

It’s a brave attempt but it failed for me on a number of levels, most dramatically in the conception of Jejah that lies at its heart. The beliefs and goals of the group are so ill-defined that it’s difficult to fathom their appeal or how they could establish such a powerful hold even over its most vulnerable members. Even the most heinous beliefs have that visible and compelling spark that allows outsiders to glimpse their power but this was entirely lacking and made it virtually impossible to empathise with many of the characters beyond a superficial understanding that sometimes people need something to believe in. 	

Part of the problem is that while the sections purport to give us the viewpoints of Will, Phoebe and John Leal, they are actually viewpoints as imagined by Will alone. This reveals Will’s unsettling attachment to Phoebe and his dependency on HER faith to fill the void left by his own. While this is an interesting subject in its own right, but when it is combined with Phoebe’s growing connection to the cult and Will’s vague, undeveloped ideas of John Leal it fails to create meaningful pictures of any of the characters. It set up a jarring remove between the reader and Phoebe so that it became even more difficult to engage with her and to understand her motivations and therefore the dramatic consequences of her fanaticism.	

There’s a string current of obsession throughout, obsessive faith and obsessive relationships as the characters attempt to fill the holes within themselves with external substitutes. Phoebe’s obsession leads her down a sad, dark path as Jejah and John Leal spiral into violence while Will is unable to detach himself from their relationship. One problem is the starkly unemotional nature of the writing, the characters tell us (or rather, Will does) of their powerful feelings but I found it difficult to believe them.

In the end Kwon attempts to do two quite different things. Portray a deep and complex picture of one man’s relationship to faith, both its presence and its loss and his attempts to grapple with the world through both. This is done through the focus on Will and our understanding of events through the prism of his experience. On top of this is the exploration of a deeper fanaticism based on guilt and vulnerability and (presumably) the idea that in the right circumstances any one of us could find ourselves in Phoebe’s shoes. I believe that this is true, but I didn’t believe it in the story because I could only see her through Will’s eyes, her voice was lost and so was any real possibility for empathy. The idea is that these different but related strands will shed new light on one another but instead they tend to obscure the very points Kwon is trying to make.

Jill Swan

I wanted to like this much more than I actually did. Kwon’s writing voice is lovely, the prose she uses was my favorite part of this book. The plot didn’t engage me the way I had hoped, and while I began the book caring about the two main characters, I had lost interest in what happened to either of them by the end.

Jeremy Anderberg

This slim novel was published last summer to immediate critical acclaim. We have three narrators: Will Kendall, a good-natured student at the fictional Edwards University; Phoebe Lin, also a student, but a little more reckless and fun-loving; and John Leal, the mysterious man who's spent time as a prisoner in North Korea but is now back around campus leading a religious group.

Will and Phoebe are our primary narrators, with Leal playing more of a background role — albeit still a powerful one. Those two quickly strike up a romance, but John and his group play the part of a wedge slowly working its way into their relationship. Will becomes more suspicious of John while Phoebe becomes more entranced.

So where do the bombs come into play? The title, after all, is The Incendiaries. Well, ultimately, it comes out that Leal's group is responsible for a local bombing which had disastrous, unforeseen consequences. Is it possible that Phoebe played a role? Or did common sense bring her back from the brink of an unthinkable decision?

Okay, so that's the very short plot outline, without giving too much away. How did I really feel about the book though?

I can see why it was well-reviewed; the writing is very good and the story drew me in, picking up steam as it went on. It was one of those books that feels more like literature than just a novel. But, that also made it kind of annoying. Some of the writing style and organization was confusing, and Kwon seems to be trying to make some sort of modern, ambiguous point about faith and extremism, but I can't quite figure out what that point is. Sometimes that's okay, but for me personally, this novel ultimately didn't connect.

Valentina Cherednichenko

Ehh, how do I review this book without being mean? It just really wasn't good. It lacked in creating meaningful relationships or any attachments to any of the characters. The story line dragggggggged on with not much actually happening.

Phoebe Lin and Will Kendall meet in 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 drawn into a secretive cult founded by a charismatic former student with an enigmatic past. When the group commits a violent act in the name of faith, Will finds himself struggling to confront a new version of the fanaticism he's worked so hard to escape. Haunting and intense, The Incendiaries is a fractured love story that explores what can befall those who lose what they love most.

Daryl Houston

This was fine, neither dazzling nor altogether meh in terms of story or style.

Nico J

Wandering through this book is a bit like taking foggy paths in a place you aren't quite sure is real - the minute you think something is opaque and significant, it dissipates. The writing doesn't bother me, because that's what I'm here for. Frankly, if I wanted the staid tone of a newspaper, I would read one. Does it seem superfluous at times? Certainly, but sometimes don't you want to pitch headfirst into wonderland; don't you want to fall in? 

Some of these passages are fun enough to read three times over. There are some central themes and questions that bubble under the surface. Discussions of identity, faith, perspective, mental illness. Loss. Who is telling the truth out of the two main narrators, Phoebe and Will? Truthfully I don't think you're meant to know. Will emerges, for the first half of the book, as the reliable and faithful protagonist, but there are blurry lines throughout and it's difficult to tell whose perception of reality is wrong or right. There are parts of each character that are relatable- is it worth achieving if you aren't the best, if everyone before you has reached the pinnacle and will do it better? Is it worth breathing in a hobby that you'll never come in first for? It's something I've agonized over myself. On Will's end, the feeling of being out of place, losing faith, hiding how different they are at a school that's full of people from a completely different world, a background that fits together like a story and free of blemishes . . . that's familiar too.

John is the perspective with which I can't relate, I can't understand. It sounds like the time spent in the gulag that he talks about is proven to be fake, so what does his religious fervor represent? That's really the only part that frustrates me is I'm not quite sure of his significance, or what he brings, or if he's only one more rotating planet around the intense, burning star that is Phoebe and her philosophies. One thing that made sense was the draw of a cult for people with their backgrounds and life situations. I would have liked to know more about Phoebe's dad and his weird standing, straddling the community and the situation with his daughter. I'd like to read this again and take another crack at it.

Edit: Near the end, when they mention her diary, I did a double-take on the title because I'd be "hearing" in my head a word about fire and bombs, and closed the book feeling like it was referring to her diaries instead.

Lili

it wasn't painful to read like all my other one stars, but the sheer time and force of will it took to take up and finish this book exceeds every other story i've ever read. so one star feels kind of fair... I would've given it 1.5 if I could've, though. If that lessens the blow....

The Incendiaries

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