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Oct 03, 2011

Jeanette rated it:

UGH!! This is horrible! Trying to read it is like banging your head against a concrete pillar. You should only do it for the feeling of relief when you finally decide to stop.

I read about 30 pages and I can't take any more. The narrator is an obsessive---the kind who alphabetizes everything in her kitchen cupboards and freezer...and then goes one level deeper and alphabetizes within the alphabetization!
This entire "Dear Osama" story is written in that obsessive f More...

20 comments like (6 people liked it)

Feb 18, 2009

N. rated it:

Ich hoffe schlichtweg, dass das englische Original eine bessere Sprache bietet.

Im Deutschen ist es jedenfalls recht vulgär/einfach. Auf der einen Seite sollte es so sein, um eine bessere Stimmung aufzubauen, auf der anderen Seite wird maßlos übertrieben.

Was sehr schade ist, ist dass der Autor wirklich gute Ideen und Ansätze hat, aber niemals in die Tiefe geht. Man hofft immer, dass noch mehr kommt.

Die Geschichte handelt von einer Frau, die bei einem Anschlag More...

0 comments like (2 people liked it)

Dec 24, 2009

Lance Greenfield rated it:

Original, entertaining, authentic and believable

An East End [of London:] woman decides to write a letter to Osama bin Laden after a team of his suicide bombers wreck her life by indiscriminately blowing up the crowd at a football match, killing both her husband and her four-and-a-quarter year-old son, along with over a thousand other football fans.

The letter is written, mainly in the authentic language of an East End gal, but with snippets of people from other worlds. The More...

1 comment like (7 people liked it)

Jan 23, 2008

Robert rated it:

Chris Cleave, Incendiary (Knopf, 2005)

Dear Osama,

With these two words, Chris Cleave kicks off his powerful novel Incendiary, and you know it's not going to be something you've seen before. And indeed it is not. The entire thing is written by the unnamed protagonist in a letter to Osama bin-Laden after al-Qaeda bombed a stadium during a big match, taking the lives of her husband and son. She tries to make a go of life afterwards, but while she never explicitly asks the que More...

0 comments like (10 people liked it)

Sep 09, 2011

Kristen rated it:

I would like to give this book 3.5 stars, but since I can't, I've decided to round it up to 4 stars.

The subject matter is incredibly depressing and there were several portions of the book that left me in tears... in public... on the subway. However, I did enjoy the "open letter" writing format and thought that it made the protagonist easier to relate to. As someone who lived and worked in NY during 9/11 I thought that it was an extremely realistic portrayal of someone goi More...

0 comments like (2 people liked it)

Mar 03, 2011

Sarah rated it:

Oh boy! Very much sucked into this book. It is a letter to Osama bin Laden after a bombing in London by a grieving wife and mother. Very intense. Can't put it down.

2 comments like (1 person liked it)

Jan 29, 2012

Elizabeth rated it:

I really like Chris Cleave's writing, and I enjoyed this ending more than the one in Little Bee. It helped to listen to this London-centered novel on tape, since there are a lot of British-isms throughout. I could easily picture myself living in a post-Osama bin Laden world, and I found some of his descriptions of grief and anger spot-on. I don't know that I can rate it much higher since the subject depressed me throughout and I found some of the plot a little too crazy for me, but I did enjo More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Sep 24, 2011

Martine rated it:

Hard to review. Miss being able to give a half star too, I would round this up to a 4.5 (B+/A-). Loved the narrating character's voice, the intense emotions, the thought-provoking subject matter, the fast-paced story line. This book sucked me in. On the other hand, I had trouble with some of the developments in the book, and I wasn't so pleased with the ending. Also, am I the only one out there bugged by the affairs of the mom/wife in Little Bee & the mom/wife in Incendiary? This is from a More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Sep 08, 2011

Rachelfm rated it:

Chris Cleave creates such memorable, credible characters with absolutely unique voices. The admittedly imperfect mother narrating this work in her singular, working-class, comma-phobic London voice grabs you by the gut. I didn't come up for air while reading this book. A fictional but eerily realistic terror attack rips through London and the life of one small family. The surviving mother writes a year-long letter to Osama bin Laden, addressing her anger, her loss, and her reactions (rationa More...

0 comments like (2 people liked it)

Aug 28, 2011

Marije rated it:

Horrific tale about a woman who loses her husband and child in a terrorist attack, while she is having an orgasm with another man (she sees the attack happen at that exact moment - on television). Mad with grief, guilt, and anger, she writes a letter to Osama bin Laden, willing him to understand how precious and innocent her son was to her. What unfolds is her wandering through traumatized London, where people and government show their darkest sides in their struggle for survival.

This More...

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Aug 25, 2011

Katie rated it:

I read this because Little Bee made such an impact on me and I needed a plane read I could rely on (there's no downloading another book when you're up there!) at first I started thinking "oh no, this author has a pattern." I sometimes get annoyed when an author churns out the same pattern over and over and when the main British mother in this novel seemed a foil for the British mother in the last book, with the same marital woes and bereavement I was understandably worried. But as the More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Aug 17, 2011

Sarah rated it:

A woman's life is forever changed when her policeman husband and young son are killed in a terrorist attack at a London soccer match. She obviously is not handling the loss well. As her life unravels, she writes a letter to Osama, detailing her grief, and asks him politely and urgently to stop his killing.

"Dear Osama they want you dead or alive so the terror will stop....I don't want 25 million dollars Osama, I just want you to give it a rest. AM I ALONE? I want to be the More...

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Aug 09, 2011

Jessica rated it:

After Little Bee, I had high hopes for Incendiary. Unfortunately, Chris Cleave left me disappointed. Unfortunately, Incendiary seems more like an outlandish dark daydream than anything real. For instance, she throws up on Prince William. Really? Really. I understand what Cleave was trying to do here, but no part of it seemed real. The entire time I thought I was reading some middle schooler's attempt to be a dark and gruesome author. With the middle schooler you pat him on the back, at least he' More...

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Aug 04, 2011

Lauren rated it:

I really enjoyed this book, and found it unique coming from the perspective of a woman writing a letter to Osama bin Laden...maybe especially interesting with everything that's happened in the past couple of weeks? But I find that for a simple East Ender, Cleave sometimes didn't really stick to that frame of mind - she drops commas and uses slang but symbolically compares herself to the city of London and rattles off complex metaphors like a 25-year-old getting a PhD in English. I suppose as a w More...

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Jul 12, 2011

Stephanie rated it:

I stayed up late reading Incendiary, by Chris Cleave, hours after my husband and daughters fell asleep. Since my husband had actually fallen asleep in the girls’ room while reading them their bedtime story, I was alone with this very disturbing book. When I finally finished, my heart ached so badly for my family that I decided to go and join them. Better to sleep squished together with the people you love than lie awake and worry about them alone.

The unnamed narrator, an Eastender More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Jul 03, 2011

Jennyreadsexcessively rated it:

Oh, this is a tough one to rate. On the one hand, I liked the conceit of this novel: a woman loses her family to a terrorist attack and writes a letter to Osama bin Laden detailing her loss and subsequent decline. I also liked the writing voice that seemed authentic to a lower middle class undereducated Londoner. This excerpt from page 4 is especially keen after recent events:
"As for you, I know you'd stop the bombs in a second if I could make you see my son with all your heart for j More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Jun 11, 2011

Denise rated it:

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here

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Apr 28, 2011

Jane rated it:

The one by Chris Cleve was written before he wrote Little Bee, I believe. I don't like it as well even though I see many similarities. What drove me nuts was the epistolary style, a long letter to Osama bin Laden, in lower class English dialect. "You wouldn't want to live here Osama." (never a comma) I think simple first person would've worked just as well and not grated on my nerves every time that narrator adds her asides to Osama. The outrage Cleve expresses against terrorism, b More...

1 comment like (1 person liked it)

Apr 05, 2011

Karen rated it:

Having just finished Chris Cleave's second novel and loving it, I immediately went out to buy his first novel, "Incendiary." Overall, I found parts of the story to be a bit over the top and messy, but I still enjoyed the story. It's face paced and impossible to put down.

Although none of the characters is even remotely likeable, I still was still able to connect with them. This was the same case in his second novel, "Little Bee." Cleave has a way of making off putt More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Mar 03, 2011

Mary Lou rated it:

Incendiary a Novel is a fascinating look at the effect of the war on terror both from a societal and individual point of view. The basic plot is that bin Laden attacks London, prompting such security measures as closing all river traffic and some bridges and putting up barrage balloons. Cleave's protagonist is an unnamed British commoner, a woman who's told, "You're very plainspoken .... You say exactly what you think, don't you?" She replies, "Yes I do. You should try it. Saves a More...

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Feb 23, 2011

Jill rated it:

Imagine that you’re a working class Cockney mother with a husband who detonates bombs and a young son who is four years and three months old. You stave off your anxieties about the uncertainty of your life through mindless sex encounters. Eventually, you meet a neighbor – a journalist named Jasper – and, while your husband and son are at a soccer game, you invite him to your flat. At the exact same time you are in the throes of sexual abandon, there’s a massive terrorist bomb attack at the L More...

6 comments like (2 people liked it)

Jan 11, 2011

Jennifer rated it:

Before I get to this review, I just thought I would let you know that I was dreading reading this. First of all a child dies, and I have a hard time reading books where anything bad happens to children – I’ve got 2 kids, it makes me think of them. Even before I had kids I had a hard time reading this sort of thing, because it usually ended with me crying like a baby. Second of all it has to do with a horrendous act of terrorism very close to 9/11 (My oldest son Jake was born on this date btw) an More...

4 comments like (1 person liked it)

Dec 11, 2010

Andrew rated it:

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here

1 comment like

Sep 18, 2010

Ellen rated it:

This book is like witnessing a train wreck--or a terrorist attack, which is what it is about. It's also about how a big city (in this case London) might react if it experienced a major attack like we did in the U.S. The main character loses her husband and four-year-old son in a huge explosion at a soccer match and the book (which is written in the form of a letter to Osama bin Laden) is about her struggle to go on afterward. The picture it paints of a society that believes itself to be under si More...

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Jun 24, 2010

Alex rated it:

After 130 pages I decided to call it quits on this book. While the idea of a woman writing to the terrorist who engineered the deaths of her husband and son is intriguing, I found the protagonist unrealistic given the intellectual and moral gravity that the plot entails. It is entirely possible to make a character such as an unfaithful wife seem sympathetic and interesting, but I think Cleave misses the mark in this regard. Like many other novels that begin with tragedies, we as readers are t More...

0 comments like (2 people liked it)

May 22, 2010

Khaya rated it:

"Incendiary" is a letter to Osama bin Laden written by a working class London woman who has lost her husband and son in a terror attack. In this confessional letter, the woman describes some of the events in her life prior to the attack as well as her interactions afterward. The nameless woman appears to unravel over the course of the book, as do many of the people around her and even the city of London itself.

The book was powerful, intense and well-written. I liked the More...

2 comments like (1 person liked it)

Mar 10, 2010

Sheila rated it:

I loved Chris Cleave’s Little Bee, so when my husband learned that I was meeting a friend in a bookstore, he told me I should look for Cleave’s first book Indendiary and see if I’d like that too. So I looked.

Pages of compliments to the author at the start of a book do tend to have a bad effect on me. By the time I’d found the first page of writing, my bookstore coffee was cold. I almost wrote the novel off as artsy and not my style but then I stopped and read again. And I was thoroughl More...

0 comments like (4 people liked it)

Feb 28, 2010

Gigi rated it:

wow. i buy the book at the miami airport and start reading at takeoff. fifteen minutes later, my mouth is literally hanging open with shock. a three hour flight to nyc feels like six seconds and i race home to finish the book that night. i read and loved little bee (chris cleave's 2008 novel) and i have been an ardent and faithful word-of-mouther for the last year, pushing it onto the bookshelves of anyone who will hear me out. i don't think love is the right word for my reaction to incendiary. More...

0 comments like (5 people liked it)

Feb 28, 2011

Mike rated it:

Before writing this review, I re-read my review of "Little Bee", Cleave's later book. Yup, you can tell it's the same writer. Like Little Bee, Incendiary is a gripping story, set in London and focused on horror, this time the aftermath of suicide bombers. In both books the characters suffer fates they don't deserve. But unlike what I remember of Little Bee, this book is quite ambiguous. The story, told as a letter to Osama Bin Laden, involves a lower class housewife who, after losing h More...

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Jan 23, 2012

Cassy rated it:

After reading both Incendiary and Little Bee, I've come to the conclusion that Chris Cleave doesn't think much of humans. It seems that to him we are all put on this earth to make each other miserable. I suppose his writing is meant to give you pause and take note of what you beleive about the human condition, and I admit it certainly worked.
Cleave's unnamed narrator in Incendiary describes in such graphic details the horror of living through terrorist attacks on London and seeing her cit More...

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