Friday, January 6, 2012

Book Review: Incarnate by Jodi Meadows

NEWSOUL
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.

NOSOUL
Even 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 suspicious and 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?
My thoughts:
First of all, how gorgeous is that cover?! I am not ashamed to admit that beautiful covers draw me in, but in Incarnate the story was just as beautiful. If only every YA fantasy was as exciting, original and well written as Incarnate, but it really is the butterfly of its genre. I can already tell that Incarnate will be on my Top 10 of 2012 lists, and I'm saying that in January!

Ana is incredible. For the first eighteen years of her life, she has been taught that she is a nosoul, unworthy of love, happiness and life itself. And like I am sure many of you know; if you're told something often enough, you start believing it. I felt so bad for her, and was really rooting for her to find the truth about who she really is. I really enjoyed discovering the small pleasures of life alongside her, and seeing her regain faith in herself, and trust in the world around her.

Sam. Wow. I think I'm in love with him. He was such a kind, gentle soul, showing Ana the kind of friendship and love she had never known before. It was really interesting to see how he deals with being over five thousand years old, to carry all that knowledge and pain from past lives into the future. When he talked of his past lives and deaths I could feel the pain as if it was my own, and I really got to see what a blessing and curse reincarnation was for him. And his love for music was so beautiful!

The story is perfectly paced, with excitement well mixed in with Ana's daily life. I never felt like anything was rushing or going to slow, but was happy for the story to take me where it wanted to go. And wow - that twist toward the end had me crying out in anger! Still the ending itself came together perfectly, with just enough unanswered questions to make me want the sequel, yet without any of the cliffhangers that just make me frustrated.

I really don't feel like anything I say can do this beautiful, beautiful book justice, so please just pre-order a copy and see for yourself! Incarnate is a new favorite for me, and I can't wait to read more of what Jodi Meadows writes in the future.

Cover:
GORGEOUS! And so fitting to the story!

My rating of this book:



Want to know more?
Add Incarnate to your Goodreads wish list
Visit Jodi Meadows' website
Read Jodi's blog
Follow Jodi on Twitter

Full disclosure:
ARC received from NetGalley

This book can be purchased from a number of local retailers and online book stores like Amazon and The Book Depository (I'm not an affiliate of either). The latter store has free shipping to about 100 countries.


9 comments:

  1. I have this one from Net Galley too. Glad to hear the book is as good as the cover.

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  2. Such a pretty cover, yes I would pick it up from the look of it. And I must say that the story sounds good too

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  3. After reading your review, I'm sooo happy to have an eARC of this as well. Many of the reviews I've read for this are positive, although some were mixed / negative as well. But I'm still dying to read Incarnate (and I blame this über-gorgeous cover). Great review! Thanks for sharing. :)

    Carina

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  4. I loved this one too and my review goes up next week! It really is a well paced book. Just enough mystery balanced with answers. Oh, and that mother! I wanted to knock her block off every time she entered the scene.

    Great review - totally agree!

    Jen

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  5. So glad you loved this one too. Many of my book friends didn't, and I felt a bit out of place, LOL.
    And the cover is so beautiful, I'll have to get a printed book too as I loved it so much.

    Happy midnight reading!

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  6. That cover is so beautiful. I love it. ;) I'm so glad to hear that this book is good. Yay! I can't wait to read it. Great review.

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  7. so beautiful[review and cover ^_^] I can't wait to read it

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  8. Oh man, I need this book in my life!!! It sounds AMAZING. And oh, this ending that makes you cry such angry tears has me both scared and excited.

    I cannot wait to meet Ana and Sam and discover the amazing relationship between them and the worldbuilding Jodi has crafted.... damnit, need to bump this up on my wishlist!!! Fantastic review!

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  9. I finished this the other day and really enjoyed it too! The world building was amazing and I enjoyed that even more than the main story.

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Thank you for sharing your thoughts =)