With a cover as pretty as that you'd think this book would be more dramatic, but unfortunately very little seems to happen for the majority of the novel. The story consists of Ana attempting to discover why she is a Newsoul and managing to fall in love along the way. You see, in this utopian world every soul is reincarnated into a new body once they die, this has continued on and on for thousands of years. Each time a baby is born, they search for a match in the soul database to find out which individual has returned... until Ana. Ana's soul didn't have a match, and at the time of her birth, the soul of another disappeared from the database. In a world where everyone has known everyone for thousands of years, being responsible for a soul disappearing leaves Ana an outcast, abandoned by her father and mistreated by her mother because of it. One day, she sets out to discover why.
As much as I like the change from the typical dystopian setting, a utopia is difficult because nothing particularly bad happens and the novel lacks excitement because of it. The story concentrates more on Ana's relationship with Sam. I found the focus on music and dancing - for which they both share a passion - to be very dull, this would probably not be the case if I was a big fan of playing instruments and ballroom dancing... as I am not, however, I almost fell asleep during these scenes. I would have also liked a better explanation as to why Sam's opinion of Ana differs so greatly from everyone else's even when he has only just met her. He constantly tells her that she deserves to live her life to the full and enjoy it, whereas everyone else seems to believe that her life is worthless because she is unlikely to be reborn. Isn't it too big a coincidence that she happens to run into a handsome young guy who also happens to be okay with who she is? It seems every young adult heroine must meet that one guy that is completely different from all the rest.
I also have some problems with this whole reincarnation thing. I'm guessing that their must be some incest going on if they've been reborn so many times, isn't it also possible to give birth to your grandparents? Weird. And if you are with someone in one life (e.g. married) are you just supposed to find someone else even though you retain all your memories of your past lives? That doesn't seem right, and yet you would be a completely different person biologically, there's even a chance you could end up being siblings. Imagine your husband or wife being reborn as your brother or sister... too strange. And perhaps I missed the answer but it wasn't clear if I did: if people remember their past lives, are babies born intelligent?
On top of that, the changing genders issue also seemed kind of weird to me. Now, you have to be careful with the subject of gender, I mean, what is gender after all? Isn't it just the effect of primary socialisation on our behaviour? It could be. And I suppose having souls that are genderless is one way of getting rid of inequalities, I quite like reading books that explore the idea of one gender or being genderless. But, here's what's weird, and it's all to do with the reincarnation thing again: at one point in the novel, Ana looks at a photograph of Sam when he was a woman in a past life, and she is jealous because he fills out a dress better than her. I'm trying to wrap my head around what it would be like to be jealous of your boyfriend because his curves look good in a dress. Bizarre.
Incarnate really could have been good. It could have explored interesting ideas like the possibility of reincarnation and the nature of the soul. It could have served as an important reminder that we have one life to live and that we need to make the most of it. It could have, but it didn't.
