Soulful Story

Incarnate by Jodi Meadows

* ARC read thanks to Julie at My 5 Monkeys

4 gnomes out of 5 gnomes

This book has an interesting twist on immortality. I don't think I've read anything quite like it because it takes the age old theme of finding out who you are to whole new levels.  I can't even imagine what it would be like to be new in a world where reincarnation is the norm. It would be horribly lonely to be the only one to never have known any past lives and really know no one.

Ana is an anomaly in her world because unlike everyone else in the world she's only been born this one time. When she was born one of the other souls disappeared, for this reason a lot of people hate and fear her. Even her own mother is a really horrible person that does nothing to make her life easier.

Ana just wants to find her place in the world and know why she was born. It seems that nobody knows how to answer her or that they are hiding what they know. Some mysteries are solved by the end but Ana still has plenty to learn. I hope that there are even more answers in the next book.

Her relationship with Sam was well done and is full of surprises. I'm still not sure that I would trust him as much as Ana does because he sure seems to have his share of secrets too.  I think they just need to communicate more and well not have as many secrets. Ana also needs to get over her jealousy and accept that Sam sees her for who she is and doesn't want anybody else. They definitely have something swoon worthy going on and I can't wait to see their relationship explored more.

I think the book works so well because it's hard to decide what would be better, being a newsoul or an oldsoul. If you were new you wouldn't know every single person and everything would be new to you. This newness could be bad too because that would mean that every single person, including newborn babies would know exponentially more then you do right now. On the other side is that if you're an oldsould, then you have thousands of years worth of memories and experiences. This can be good because you would know so much but bad in that you definitely can get stuck in your ways and you have literally thousands of memories that could depress you or leave you in a stupor.

It looks like Ana has a very important role to play in the society of Heart. I'm really curious to whether she has just the one lifetime to live (of course I don't want her to die either because that's really the only way to know for sure.) She's such a strong character and has so much to prove to herself and others. You'll just be rooting for her to find the answers that she's searching for.

The end of the book really leaves the story in an intriguing place because there seems to be a lot of chaos in the very near future. There is still so much more to discover and I am looking forward to seeing where the story goes from here.