Incarnate: Review

Title: Incarnate
Author: Jodi Meadows
Release Date: January 2012
Published By: Katherine Tegen
Pages: 374
Goodreads Rating: 3.85 stars


Review: In Range, the same million souls are reincarnated over and over again, until one soul suddenly disappears and is replaced by a new soul: Ana. Everyone knows she's different, but no one knows why, only that with her appearance came an onslaught of dragons and sylphs. While the rest of the citizenry wonder if she's to blame, Sam grows increasingly close to her. Could he fall in love with someone like her - and would everyone else allow it?

INCARNATE brought a new concept to light, with the fascinating idea of a million people repeatedly reincarnated. I've read other books that featured reincarnation but never like this, so I was looking forward to the background aspect of this novel. Unfortunately, there was very little focus on this part and many questions I had about how this world operated were left unanswered. There was a lot of room left over for development of the book's concept, and I felt the story would have been better off with more development in this area and less in the decidedly creepy romance.

The romance was one of my biggest pet peeves in young adult fiction: a super incredibly old guy dating a teenage girl. Even though Sam looks young in person, behind that face is an old, old, old man. It'd be weird if a hundred year old man dated a teenage girl, and it's even weirder for someone thousands of years old to be doing the same. Because of this, I just couldn't relate or appreciate the romance, and instead felt as if too much of the book was concentrating on this facet of the story.

I also found myself continually put off by the protagonist, Ana. I understand she had a rough childhood and went through the trials and tribulations of being isolated from the rest of the world and trapped with an absuive woman, but to put it plainly, she annoyed me. Time and time again through the novel, she was ultra-dependent on everyone else, especially Sam, and didn't always have a spine to support herself. What I really wanted was to see her pick herself up and be strong, or at least try to be, but this wasn't the case.

All in all, INCARNATE had a lot of potential but I felt that it ultimately disappointed me. There could have been more done with its intriguing concept but instead much of the focus was devoted to a romance that was off-putting due to the incredible difference in ages. Ana herself somewhat irritated me, and I did wish she could be a little more independent. Still, fans of paranormal fiction might find this a different and interesting read.