Review: Incarnate by Jodi Meadows

Incarnate by Jodi Meadows
Series: Newsoul, #1
Published: January 31, 2012
Publisher: Katherine Tegan Books
Pages: 374

New soulAna 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 soulEven Ana’s own mother thinks she’s a nosoul, 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 its citizens are afraid of what her presence means. When dragons and sylph attack the city, is Ana to blame?HeartSam 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?Jodi Meadows expertly weaves soul-deep romance, fantasy, and danger into an extraordinary tale of new life.

Meadows wound a beautiful tale of new and old. It’s been a while since I’ve read a book not only of such realistic world-building, but such a fascinating subject.

First: the morality. Ana lives in a world where the same souls are continually reincarnated with their past memories. Then, one day, Ana is born. She is a new soul, the first one ever. And it soon becomes clear that an old soul isn’t coming back. Meadow’s had me questioning the cycle of reincarnation, whether it’s right that the same people get to live forever. What if other souls are continually pushed to the side because of it? What happens when one doesn’t come back? Is it fair? Then, trying not to spoil, there is a God-figure. Except his role and motives are questionable and vague. Is he the one that controls the reincarnations? If so, why? How was Ana born? The whole concept behind this book amazed me, and I eagerly await the answers to these questions in the next book.

The characters are lovely. Honestly, I could start describing them right now for you, but Meadow’s does such a fantastic job at it. Not only are the main characters intriguing, byt there are also well developed secondary and tertiary characters.

But there is one character that might be slightly glitchy. In my view, this could possibly be a case of a ‘Unreliable Narrator.’ You see, Anna grew up in isolation. She grew up under conditions of hatred and self-deprecation. By the time she sets out on her journey, she is quite unstable and naive in the ways of people and the world.

But this sets us up for something great: character development. This is something rarely done well in YA these days, and I’m so grateful to Meadows for writing it. As the novel progresses, we see Ana growing and developing, learning things from experience (another plus, she doesn’t just spontaneously understand ideas). At times, I really wished that she developed quicker, but honestly, that’s my own impatience talking and not the author’s lack of skill. By the end of the novel, Ana has clearly come a long way, but she has a ways to go.

A Must-Read for YA fans.