Skip to main content

INCARNATE by Jodi Meadows


copyright date: January 2012
primarily marketed for: young adult (13 and up)

Ana is a newsoul.  She is born into a world where every other human body is inhabited by a soul that has lived thousands of years.  Ana’s community, a town called Heart, does not welcome her into their world.  To the rest of the population, Ana, or as they refer to her: a nosoul, represents fear of the unknown.  The timing of her birth coincided with the disappearance of a beloved soul named Cienna.  The rest of the souls fear her birth means the beginning of a series of “replacements,” and they hold it against Ana.

Ana ends up spending approximately the first 18 years of her life in a cottage outside of the village with her abusive and controlling mother.  Her father fled Heart upon her birth. 

Incarnate by Jodi Meadows begins when Ana is ready to leave her mother’s home to travel back to Heart in search of answers.  She wants to know why she was born and to find her purpose. 

Ana’s quest for meaning in her life could easily have turned into a story simply about her inner personal growth as a newsoul.  And that would make for a great story.  However, Ana’s journey is much more dynamic than that.  Her story is filled with deception, attacks by magical creatures called sylphs, falling in love, learning to trust, music, dragon-slaying, dancing, enemies, and family secrets.  And it is all set in an whimsical town surrounded by stone walls that pulse as if they contain a heartbeat. 

Incarnate is the first in a trilogy of books that is sure to capture your imagination and sweep you away to the magical land of Heart.

Comments

  1. When I finished reading its preview and found out that my cousin is in their bookstore I asked her how good is the book, then she said it's perfectly great so I told her to buy the book for me. Then I found this blog, I have a feeling that it's really nice book, I'll read it later, after blogging.

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

TAKE WHAT YOU CAN CARRY by Kevin C. Pyle

copyright date: March 2012 primarily marketed for: young adults (12 and up) Despite the fact that the teacher in me sees so many lesson possibilities in Kevin C. Pyle’s graphic novel Take What You Can Carry , you should read it simply for the grace of its stories.   The artwork is as striking as the stories it tells.   Using artwork in two different colors and styles, Pyle tells the stories of two teenage boys living years and miles apart.   And yet, he communicates the universality in their experiences.   One boy is a Japanese American forced to move into an internment camp during WWII.   His family struggles to maintain their dignity and sense of peace under unbearable conditions. The other is a rebellious boy with an attitude whose reckless behavior causes him to wind up in trouble with the law.   To make amends, he finds himself completing community service hours in the most unlikely place.   I found my...

ALL THESE THINGS I’VE DONE by Gabrielle Zevin

copyright date: September 2011 primarily marketed for: young adults (8 th grade and up) I wish I would’ve known this was the beginning of a series before I started this book.   Then again, I might never have picked it up if I thought I might be committing to multiple books… At any rate, this is not a story I will be sad to return to this fall when the sequel is released.   Anya’s story takes place in New York City, in the future.   Around the time you will be old enough to be grandparents. This is a sort of post-apocalyptic, dystopian kind of book in a mild way.   Basically, the United States has self-destructed, and yet life seems to go surprisingly similar to the way we live nowadays.   Except that water and paper are costly and hard to come by.   Chocolate is prohibited.   Caffeine is an illegal drug.   Which is all to say that the setting alone is intriguing. Add to that setting, the fact that Anya is the oldest daughter of the ...

CROSSING STONES by Helen Frost

copyright date: 2009 primarily marketed for: middle school and up Helen Frost is one of my favorite authors.   I have adored every book I’ve read by her.   In fact, the copies of some of her books in our school library have disappeared because I am apparently not the only one who appreciates her work.   Her stories, told in poetic verse, are always moving and then I am always amazed to discover there is a specific format she follows when writing the poetry for each book.   You might remember her book Diamond Willow , which was a recent Caudill nominee.   Crossing Stones is the story of four teenagers during World War I (two sets of brothers and sisters who are neighbors).   The boys, Frank and Ollie, end up going off to fight in the war, while the girls, Muriel and Emma, each face their own struggles at home.   The voices of all four characters are threaded throughout the book with grace.   The poetry alternates viewpoints and includes...