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| ★★★★☆ Really Liked It |
The trilogy centres around Ana, a girl who is born into a society of 'souls' that have been continually reincarnated for about five thousand years. Souls always have a different form when they are reincarnated, though usually have something in common, such as generally being born male or from the same mother soul.
As you might be able to imagine, it was extremely difficult for Ana to grow up in a society where she is the only new soul in such a very long time - and this is only made harder by the fact that Ana replaced an oldsoul, Ciana. For this, Ana is hated by many of the existing souls, and is taken away from the main city, Heart, to be raised by her abusive mother, Li.
The first book, Incarnate, focuses on Ana's journey after she turns 18 and leaves Li. It is not only her physical journey to Heart (her aim is to find answers about her existence), but her emotional journey - how she overcomes her terrible upbringing and realises her own worth.
Asunder sees Ana finding answers - about her existence, about other newsouls, the origins of the oldsouls and many other things - though more often than not, they are not pleasant. It also deals with the effects of the final events of Incarnate, which I won't spoil for you! Tension in Heart is higher than ever, with Ana's continued presence in the oldsouls' lives. Though hatred for her is rising, she is also gaining much support from friends. There is a lot more talk of magical creatures in Asunder than in Incarnate, especially on sylph and phoenixes, which I enjoyed and expect more of in Infinite - the third and final book. I'm super excited for Infinite to come out next year, it will be an epic finale!
I also have to add that the covers are all absolutely stunning.
Incarnate leaves the reader with questions and Asunder leaves you with answers, which naturally, lead to more questions than before. It was a great read, with revelations on every page, loads of character development, plus a lot of lovely (and pretty realistic) romance.
For more information on the books, you can visit Jodi Meadows' website, by clicking here or you can find Asunder's Goodreads page by clicking here.
Under this line / break, you'll see some more of my thoughts - including spoilers, so beware!
I really enjoyed Asunder, more than I liked Incarnate, which was a surprise. Incarnate started a bit slow for me because it focuses more on character development, I think, than action. I feel that Asunder was faster paced, but still kept the same amount of depth to the characters.
Speaking of characters, I absolutely loved Cris. I think I guessed in Incarnate that Sam and Cris had had some sort of romantic history. It was easy to see how too, as they were so comfortable around each other and had similar peaceful attitudes. I was so upset when Cris sacrificed himself at the end! And when he became a sylph and Ana realised and helped him to get out of Heart. Finally the sylph mystery is (kinda) solved! Hopefully we'll hear a lot more about that in Infinite.
I loved that the music in the story wasn't lost and that Ana and Sam always went back to it. When Sam's parlour was destroyed my heart just broke. The instruments were such an important part of his existence, and like Ana said, many lifetimes of work. I can't even imagine how lost Sam would have felt (this is the part where I have to remind myself that book characters are not real, and this horrible thing didn't really happen, before I start crying in sympathy).
I think the one thing that did annoy me was Ana's continual overhearing of conversations. How is it that Stef and Sam so often don't realise that she can hear them? Which brings me to Stef's character - I didn't like her! She was so obviously jealous, and I really thought that after five thousand years of existing, you'd be able to manage that emotion better than she did!
I loved finding out more about Janan this book, even if it did totally creep me out. I honestly thought Ana must have misinterpreted the message that Janan ate newsouls, but apparently not! That room in the temple with all the skeletons and the table over the hole... spooky. I also found it really interesting how Janan controls what the oldsouls remember, though it was very frustrating at times, especially at the end when Sine doesn't remember what happened to Cris.
Speaking of the end, I'm glad that Ana was exiled. I felt that it was a very realistic response from the Councilors, considering all the evidence against Ana. I also think it's probably best for Ana that she was exiled and now she can work on stopping the events of Soul Night - whatever they are going to be!
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