Title: Incarnate Series: Newsoul #1
Author: Jodi Meadows
Published: January 31, 2012
Genre(s): Fantasy
Page Count: 374
Rating:
Summary from Goodreads: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.
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 afraid of what her presence means. When dragons and sylph attack the city, is Ana to blame?
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?
I have not for a very, very long time, felt an instant connection with a character or her story the way I did with Ana in Incarnate. This book made a wonderful, gripping first impression, with the best introduction to a conflict, setting, and protagonist I’ve encountered in a long time. The first five chapters of this book are phenomenal, and what comes after, while not quite of the same caliber, is also great writing.
While there’s a lot about this book I love, the big thing is definitely the creativity Jodi Meadows displays in her world-building. Holy guacamole, do I love the world of Incarnate—and there’s so much to discuss. I thought there was enough explanation to satisfy, and enough left unanswered to keep me coming back for more.
The “realm” where souls live, known as Range, is sort of a self-contained continent, with boundaries that shift slightly over time, but are boundaries nevertheless. Outside of Range lies exile and certain death. The world of Incarnate is populated with dragons, unicorns, trolls, griffins, rocs, and sylph, and all would love to eat a stray human. Not that death is a huge deal, of course, since the 1 million human inhabitants of Range have been reincarnating over and over again for 5,000 years. If you die, you’ll just be reborn, sometime in the next 10 years or so. The being—or rather, deity—that ensures that the souls are reborn generation after generation is Janan, a sort-of-god that lives in a temple whose stones have a heartbeat. Except maybe Janan doesn’t exist? The jury’s kind of out.
Anyway, nobody knows why souls reincarnate, and neither does anyone know why Ana, the book’s protagonist, appeared on the scene when another soul, Ciana, should have been reborn instead. But after 5,000 years of the same people living together endlessly, Ana definitely shakes things up. A lot of people are upset about it, or are suspicious, and number one on that list is Li, Ana’s mother. Basically, she neglects and abuses Ana for eighteen years before Ana decides to leave, which is what happens when the book opens.
So, right away, the first glimpse the reader gets of Ana is one of a girl who hasn’t had a great life. She’s lived in isolation with her bitter and angry parent, being taught that she’s not even a person, just a mistake and a waste of space, who isn’t even allowed to feel or express emotion because she’s not a “real” soul. Incarnate is quick to establish Ana as defensive and wary of others, but also resourceful and smart (she taught herself to read, as Li couldn’t be bothered). She’s been made to feel unwanted all her life, and her only goal is to find out why she exists, and maybe right the wrong created by her accidental incarnation.
I definitely really, really felt for Ana in the beginning stages, when I met her as a neglected yet determined runaway. When she does get to Heart, a major city, and the governing body is so cruel to her, imposing a curfew and refusing to allow her citizenship, I really began to respect her as a person. My estimation of her only went up over time as I saw her gain in confidence and purpose, as she learned more about her world and was taught skills she had been denied her entire growing-up. Yet even as she finds a place in society, Ana still feels lonely—everyone is 5,000 years old, but she’s only 18. Incarnate does a really good job of giving Ana depth and personality and humanity all while showing how different she truly is from everyone else in Range.
And while I was admiring Ana, I was also appreciating Sam, her first friend and eventual love interest. Many others are unwelcoming of Ana, but Sam is kind and accepting, understanding that she didn’t choose to be born and has just as much right to life as anyone. Sam was just so unbelievably nice, and I think Meadows did a great job writing a love interest who was thousands of years older than the protagonist yet still had common areas of interest to connect with. At one point in my notes while reading the book I just wrote “SAM” and drew a bunch of hearts after his name. In terms of YA love interests, Incarnate offers a man who’s a lot better than the average dude.
Characters and world-building aside, I will say that Incarnate is a little light on actual plot developments. Meadows is mostly focused on exposing Ana to the world she lives in, the people who inhabit it, and the history of both. A lot of what I detailed above are things that Ana has to find out through research or storytelling. Which is not to say that Incarnate is lacking in action or substance. The setting is so fascinating and the characters so well-drawn that I felt there was enough discovery to have filled a couple hundred more pages, but of course the author doesn’t do that, as towards the end of the book, the reader begins to gain some clues as to why Ana exists at all. Things end with a lot of answers to questions, but there’s still more to be explored over the remainder of the trilogy.
I’m definitely not one who’s overly focused on world-building, but I will say that the world Jodi Meadows created here was phenomenal, and this was probably helped by the inclusion of a protagonist I really felt for and was invested in (being a character-focused reader). The more sedate pace of this opening volume gave the reader plenty of opportunity to become immersed in Ana’s mind and her surroundings, and I think that gave Incarnate an almost fairytale-like feel, in spite of the modern setting. I think that Jodi Meadows’ debut is one of the best books I’ve read in months, and I’m certainly looking forward to what she does with this series in future installments.
