Jodi Meadows

The stunning conclusion to the Incarnate trilogy, a fantasy about a girl who is the first new soul born into a society where everyone else has been reborn hundreds of times. Ana knows that soon life in Heart will be at risk so she escapes with her friends, seeking answers and allies to stop Janan's ascension and keep the other Newsouls safe. But only she knows the true cost of reincarnation and the dangers she'll encounter if she returns to stop Janan once and for all. Romantic and action-filled, the rich world of Infinite is perfect for fans of epic fantasies like Graceling by Kristin Cashore and The Girl of Fire and Thorns by Rae Carson, and Ana's courage to expose the cracks in society and fight for what is right is ideal for fans of dystopian novels.

Infinite

Monicap

I received this book for free through Goodreads First Reads.

MY REVIEW:
I had some issues with this book, mainly in the first half, but the ending was perfect for the series. :)

Oh, to review this without giving major spoilers. 
I will try.

THINGS I DIDN’T LIKE
The first part. It just seemed so aimless. Like they were making up as they went. Which is fine… for the characters. But it also sorta felt like he author didn’t know where they were going, and that’s not cool.

The letter. So, at one point, Ana left Boyfriend and some other characters in the middle of the night to go on a Super-Secret Mission. And she left a letter. And that letter was just so… weird. It made me feel weird reading it. Like, why would you say these things LIKE THAT? It was just weird. And pretentious. She Signed it "Ana who Has Life". Yes, with the caps. and yes, like there she thought there was another Ana around that they would possibly confuse her with. And can we talk about the double meaning? the first line of the letter is :Please don't follow me." Then she goes on to use the next TWO paragraphs BEEEGGGGING Sam to follow her. I just... why would you write the letter like that? If it were I, I would far more succinct, and you know, NOT beg Boyfriend to come after me. Cuz that didn't work out at all.

The history. As it turns out, there was nuclear fallout or something and humans hid underground for hundreds of years and when they came out again, dragons and phoenixes had spontaneously EVOLVED. I don’t know about you, but I was perfectly happy thinking this was jus a fantasy world. Now, in fact, I have MORE questions. Namely, why would creatures from human mythology evolve instead of completely new creatures?

The latter part. Where everything came to fruition… but it was so weird and confusing. I felt like I was watching a bad Syfy original. Which, even I know they are cheesy and senseless and bad, I like them anyway (which explains why this part is also in the list of bits I liked).

Cris. I said in my review of book two I hoped some significance would be given to the weirdness that was Cris was Sam. None was given.

Stef. I also asked for Stef to become cool again. And, well… she sorta did, a little, towards the beginning… ugh. Not enough.

Explanation? What the hell happened to the other voice in the temple? That was NEVER explained!!! I WANTED to know! I’m still confused!

The tone. This book tried to be completely serious, without any of those humorous tropes from the first two books. It was like watching a toddler try to catwalk, except it wasn’t cute it just looked sorta weird and it didn’t really work.

The deaths. Yes, people died in this book. No, I’m not upset BECAUSE they died. I’m upset because I DIDN’T CARE when they were dying. I SHOULD care. But I didn’t. that is an issue. Now, I might have cared more if I had binged this series, read the first two back to back and then jumped into this one… but if I HAVE to do that, than there is a failure on the author’s part. Most people don’t have the time or the drive to reread the whole series for when the final installment comes out. If the author CAN NOT make you care about what is happening to THIS character in THIS moment… that’s a bad sign. (view spoiler)[also, none of those deaths even mattered in the end, anyway, and when I realized tat they were all being reincarnated one last time just for shits and giggles I was just like, ‘Really? THIS could have been your trump card… if I’d cared when they died.” (hide spoiler)]

THINGS I LIKED:
We met more CREATURES! In a complex fantasy world FULL of magical creatures, so far, we had only actually interacted with the sylph. in this book, we interact with centaurs, dragons, phoenixes… yay! 

The history. Around the part where the author felt she had to justify the world, The Sylph got an origin story, so more background on Janan’s immortality plan and phoenixes…

The latter part. Once our characters get back to Heart, there’s action and everything comes to fruition and it’s really satisfying. 

The ending. The Ending was sort of PERFECT for this story. Similar, in a way, to the end of Allegiant—in that the decision that Ana made was so her, a choice that if she hadn’t made it, she wouldn’t be Ana (which is how I feel about Tris’s choice in Allegiant). And then, at the end END, the hope there, for another life, the promise that everything WOULD get better even though they aren’t YET… I like promises as endings. It was perfect. Not a sad ending, not a perfect ending. Just happy enough. A promise. I was very satisfied. 

OVERALL
SO, looking at those lists, there are far more things that I didn't like than I did. (which is why the star rating went down from four to three). But even though there were several issues and things left unexplained, that's sort of what I expected. Nothing else has really been explained up to this point, either, so... but it was a good ending to the series, and I am satisfied.

Rachel Kanyid

4.5/5 stars for this book and for this series as a whole!

This has been by far one of my favorite YA-fantasy series I have read in a while!

The end to this series was beautiful.

Things I loved about this series:

The main characters were remarkably level-headed. They didn't make big deals out of little things. They were superbly NON-dramatic, most of the time--and I found that extremely refreshing for a YA series! Bravo Jodi Meadows!

The story was very engaging, and the way it was laid out throughout the three books was absolutely beautiful. You don't get all the information at once, but instead it was spread out in an intelligent way that made the unfolding of the story something that gripped me and I didn't want to put the books down.

The level of action and plot twists was perfect to keep one excited and in suspense until the end of the trilogy. There were no low-interest points in this story, like is very common in most trilogies these days, in my opinion.

The love story between the two main characters was one of my favorite parts of the book. There were no dramatic heart-breaks or irritating love-triangles. It was beautiful, and true, and everything I like to see in a love story.

Music being a key element to the story and how it played out was something that surprised me! I didn't suspect how much of a key role it would have until the end of the second book. IT WAS WONDERFUL. Music is a powerful thing, and it's great to see it as almost a magical, soul-empowering force in this series.


Dragons, and trolls, and Centaurs, OH MY!in this book, we finally got to see more from these creatures that were mostly only mentioned in the previous two. It was fun to read about them from the perspective Jodi Meadows' wrote them in.

Over all, I HIGHLY suggest this series for anyone who is looking for a new, refreshingly engaging YA-Fantasy book series to read!~

Kristen

I can't right now. I just can't.

If you enjoyed the Matched series, you'll probably enjoy this. If you hated the Matched series, the entertainment level in this one is about the same so you might want to steer clear. Fair warning. I haven't read a book so boring in a long time.

Obviously a lot of people are happy with this series, and that's great. I don't want to convince anyone that this is not a series worth loving. But it's a mediocre series in my opinion, compared to other things I've read just this year, and the whole reason for that lies in complete fault with the main characters and the lack of plot development in the first two hundred pages of this book. I actually DNFed at 41%, which I think is like page 170 something. I felt like I was going insane reading this. It's not for me. I just wish it hadn't taken me three books to realize this.

Let's start with Ana. She's boring. She could be incredibly interesting, sarcastic and witty and smart. Instead, she's a cardboard cutout of a possible character who could potentially do something great, but who would rather sit around and talk and wait and talk and wait some more. Occasionally she does things that are pretty cool, like saving centaur kids, but it's so out of character that it just doesn't fit to me. 

Then Sam. I don't normally hate love interests. The only time I've been completely against a couple being together this year is when I read ACID by Emma Pass. Great book, lousy love interest. With all of Ana's shortcomings, she would've benefited greatly from a compelling character to balance and encourage her. That is not Sam. He's just as boring, if not more so, than she is. And he seems even less like a real human being than her. I just can't see him as a real person. He's more hormonal than a teenage girl. He was okay in the first book, but any development he had then degenerated throughout the series.

Cris was fantastic. He was the only reason I read Asunder, because let's face it, that wasn't exactly a compelling read. I wished he would become the new love interest because, gosh, I hated Sam. But instead this stupid love triangle involving him and Sam and Ana came about and then Stef was thrown in and it was just unnecessary and ridiculous. And he's back in this book under circumstances that should be incredibly intriguing, but with all the talking and "Oops, I just revealed a secret I didn't really mean to reveal but I really meant to" crap, his presence can't be properly enjoyed.

So does Janan ascend? Does Ana save the New Souls? Does life go on or cease to exist? And does Deborl get his due?

I don't know. And I don't really care, to be honest. I have 300 books on my library's wish list and another 40 unread on my shelf, so I don't really have time to mess with books I don't care about. I was going to plow through this book because I knew it would get better at the end, but I just can't get past how much I don't like these characters. So, I'm really sorry, but I can't do this one. Like I said, it appeals to a lot of people. It just isn't for me, and here I have explained why. I might come back to it one day, and maybe skim the next hundred pages to try to get to the better stuff, but I don't have the patience for it any time soon.

Michelle Boyea

After the second book, I didn't have high hopes for this trilogy. I am very happy to say that I was pleasantly surprised. While the book was not a huge captivator, it did keep the reader entertained. 

The ending was predictable, at least it was to me. But it was predictable in a good way. It ended the way I hoped it would.

Tijana Kovac

This book felt rushed in some ways. The first two books were just about the mystery and intrigue of what was going on and everything went down in this installment. In some ways it was too easy to save the day. Suddenly with no particular skill or magical powers, Ana can talk to sylph, dragons and phoenixes! Even though no one else has been able to for 5 THOUSAND YEARS. 
Yeah...too much.
Since so much is up for speculation it just makes it all the more miraculous that they happen to figure out what plan will work.
I'm glad that we did get a bit of a showdown with Janan at the end and was overall satisfied with the conclusion.
Throughout the series I got so frustrated at the utter selfishness of the old souls. That was probably intended but still something that really got to me.
I wish there had been more development of the other life state/creatures in this series, since we only got into it in this last book and with the centaurs and rocs (which I still don't really know what a roc is), they did not need to be in the series at all. It's really exciting to introduce these creatures but not as much when they are not IN the story until the last book and not in a clear, fleshed out way.
I get this is YA so they're not gonna get into the sexy-times in too much detail, but I found it quite unusual that Ana didn't seem to know what sex was. Just some unnameable desire. Now this could be contributed to her lack of education but surely in her independence she would either find out from research or someone else. She doesn't really know what she's doing or getting into with Sam and he doesn't exactly help. Little problematic, perhaps.

Overall, this series was a fun and fast read filled with intrigue and occasional pearls of wisdom about mortality. I wish it had been developed a little better or differently but it did alright by me.

Danielle H.

So many feelings and emotions right now! I am so sad to have finished this trilogy. I will write a review for each book soon.

Infinite

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