The Incendiaries

I wasn't surprised to hear that R.O. Kwon spent 10 years working on this book, since it is polished to absolute perfection. In addition to its fantastic prose, The Incendiaries gives a different and uniquely dark treatment to the collegiate coming of age novel. Kwon expertly captures the tension between our need to connect and form communities, and the isolating tumult that self-discovery and self-definition can produce. The book reminded me of Elif Batuman's The Idiot, which I also loved, along with some of the elements of the film The Social Network. Although I read it in August, I think that The Incendiaries would make a fantastic winter read, and one could easily finish this little book on a single snow day.