Ana Incarnate

Incarnate
By: Jodi Meadows
Reported by: Julianna Helms
Source: DAC ARC Tours

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 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?

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

Jodi Meadows expertly weaves soul-deep romance, fantasy, and danger into an extraordinary tale of new life.

-Summary from Goodreads 

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If I lived a thousand lifetimes, I would've read this book every time and loved it still.

Incarnate is just beautiful. It's... goodness, I don't want to ramble and gush at all, but it seems like that might actually happen. I love this book too much.

Let's start with Ana. Ana is cynical and unhappy and a nosoul. She believes all the terrible things her mother, Li, called her and told her all eighteen years of her life. As a result, she can't bare to believe that there might be more to life than living in servitude, that maybe she could fall in love and have that love requited, too. She questions things--so refreshing to have a girl's first instinct to be running away when waking up in the tent of a stranger boy--as she should, but even more so than the average person. While that might aggravate some readers, I thought it was wonderful. It was exactly what I'd expect Ana to be like after all that she's been through, and I loved her. She was real.

Sam. My gosh, I have a serious fetish for literary guy musicians named Sam. They make me smile like an idiot and bawl like the world's worst romantic. Sam is amazing. He's so patient--which I was so, so happy about, because that's exactly the type of boy Ana needs. He loves music and Ana. The masquerade scene, though, that was my favorite. It made me feel like I had wings and could fly around in my giddiness, and as long as Sam and Ana were together in their beautifully awkward, wonderfully simple way, I would never fall.

There's also the music and the premise. I think the spectacularly brilliant musical incorporation in this book is what completely sold me. I love music with all of my heart. I can live forever with only books and music, and to have both in one is like finding snow-capped mountains, shimmering rivers like satin, and blinding rays of sunshine encapsulate you forever and ever. And the premise was great--thought-provoking and incredibly awesome and definitely creates some intense and funnily awkward situations. To be the only new incarnation in a world of reincarnated people who get to keep all of their past lives' memories? Fantastic. I'm beyond excited and interested in seeing where Jodi will take us next.

I don't know how to end this review and do this book justice. But perhaps, perhaps this will work, if only halfway. While I was reading Incarnate, I was listening to Lindsey Stirling's Lord of the Rings medley, and that just flared the pages and completely enchanted me.

Isn't it just beautiful?