Book Review: Incarnate by Jodi Meadows

Title: Incarnate
Author: Jodi Meadows
Series: New soul #1
Genre: Young Adult
Publisher: Katherine Tegen Books
Pub Date January 31, 2012
Pages: 374
My Copy: In Hardcover-on my TBR pile

Book Synopsis:

New soul.

Ana is new. For thousands of years in Range, a million souls have been reincarnated over and over, keeping their memories and experiences from previous lifetimes. When Ana was born, another soul vanished, and no one knows why.

No soul. 

Even An’s own mother thinks she’s a no soul, an omen of worse things to come, and has kept her away from society. To escape her seclusion and learn whether she’ll be reincarnated, Ana travels to the city of Heart, but it’s citizens are afraid of what her presence means. When dragons and sylph attack the city, is Ana to blame?

Heart

Sam believes Ana’s new soul is good and worthwhile. When he stands up for her, their relationship blooms. But can he love someone who may live only once, and will Ana’s enemies-human and creature alike-let them be together? Ana needs to uncover the mistake that gave her someone else’s life, but will her quest threaten the peace of Heart and destroy the promise of reincarnation for all.

Book Review:

This book had a very interesting and original concept to it. I like books that try something different and take risks.  Incarnate was one book that took some time in the way it was setup, the world and everything else. It took me some time to get into it, but once I was in it, the book got better for me.

This book was actually very descriptive and the imagery that the author used to describe the creatures known as sylph and later dragons was very good. Also the fact that Ana is different from everybody else in this society leads to some interesting conflicts, dramas, some new directions for people.

One of the interesting things in this book I found was the relationships in this book. The relationship between Sam and Ana was more intense than I thought it was going to be. The way they got to know each other was certainly different than I thought it was going to be. I really found that their friendship right at the beginning was a nice way to start it. Plus Ana is very different than the other people because she is the first person to not have been reincarnated.

The mythology here was interesting. I like that they have a library and that there’s a council. The council of Heart was interesting as they kind of run like our modern day government. Hmmm…. Yet I wouldn’t think that a society like this would have a library that was impressive to say the least. Their history was quite impressive. Ana is so different and yet curious to say the least. I like that her curiosity made her want to try so many things.

Sam and Ana bond over music. Music is a huge part of this book as Sam is really into it and later on him and Ana start to bond over it as well. Despite people being hostile and nasty to hers because she is new, she starts to really find Heart interesting and makes some friends. Making friends is important because it makes you feel connected to something and want to be greater. The bonds she makes is one of the things that I truly enjoyed about the book.

Li, Ana’s guardian almost ruins everything in this book.  Li has always hated Ana and makes her feelings very clear. Li thinks Ana will ruin everything. Li colludes with people who want to destroy Ana as these people believe they are out to destroy Hearts way of life and want to end the reincarnation cycle. Ana is new and this is just the beginning of the end for Heart and the whole cycle of reincarnation as they know it. 

Yet the exciting part of this book was the ending. OMG. Everything that we thought we knew got turned upside down by the discoveries that were made about certain characters and now things with resurrections aren’t going to be running so smooth as something has gone wrong with the resurrection process. 

I found the ending of this book really satisfying. I really am looking forward to reading Asunder.

Rating: