Well, this one was a more than a bit of a disappointment. There was a lot of promise…but I ended up feeling confused and annoyed most of the book.

The premise: Ana, the protagonist, is born into a world with fantasy trappings (dragons, trolls, rocs, etc.) where once you die you are reincarnated in another body. Everyone one always comes back, possibly because of the mysteriously absent god Janan, who “lives” in an equally enigmatic temple in the center of the city Heart. This city is the focal point of human civilization, which has organized itself into a kind of utopian society run by a council.

Okay, so one night 18 years ago the soul Ciana died and the temple flashed dark. When Ana was born five years later everyone expected her to be Ciana. Instead Ana was a soul that has never been born before –a Newsoul. Ana's father abandoned his family, while her mother, Li, raised Ana for outside of Heart for eighteen years. Li isn’t all too keen on this Newsoul business, and she is an abusive and neglectful parent to Ana. At the start of the novel, Ana is 18 and heading out to Heart on her own to find out who she is/why she exists.

This seems to be a good start, yes? And Ana learns a number of intriguing details on top of all of this. For example, Heart was found as a pre-existing city, and no one knows who built it. (Remember, these people have been around for thousands of years). The walls of the city have a “heartbeat” which Ana finds repellent but everyone else is dandy with. The temple has no entrance. Heart is regularly besieged by dragons who appear to want to destroy the temple of Janan.

Turns out, however, that rather than investigating this fascinating Janan/reincarnation/Newsoul/city of Heart tangle, the plot is mostly about Ana’s relationship with Sam. Who is the Sam you ask? Well, he’s this fellow Ana meets at the start of her journey who just happened to be camping out in the wilderness when she needs to be saved. From then on out he becomes her almost (boy)friend and guardian. Ah, Sam. He's sweet. He's hot. He's a gifted. He saves Ana’s life. What’s my problem? I guess I was bothered by how their relationship was composed of awkwardness, confused kisses, and music lessons and nothing else. He’s thousands of years old! He’s spent reincarnations as men and women! Why is he so awkward about his relationship with Ana? Also, he struck me as boring because he never really did anything interesting the whole novel. I cut Ana a little slack because she had grown up in an emotionally abusive home. But when Sam does sneaky things (like creeping out of the house late at night and talking about her behind her back) she never really holds him accountable! *sigh*

The world building was the strongest part of the novel, but there were far too many details left unexplained. This utopian society for example? Aside from the fact that work distribution and legal points are glossed over; apparently, everyone is perfectly content with being bossed around by a council. I never got a good picture of this society or how it worked, and as I love the gritty issues of utopian societies, this bugged me. The mix of fantasy/science fiction was interesting at first, but there was never any explanation for it. Electronic books and dragons? Synthetic silk and canons? How, why, what?! Also, people know about Cockatoos from faraway lands, but apparently Heart is the only place safe from fantastical and deadly creatures? So very confusing to me. Also, the thing with souls being asexual was original, but I saw a lot of relational complications with that.

The climax was…actually I really don’t know. I didn’t see that particular plot twist with Ana’s father coming, but I felt it was rushed and abruptly swept offstage. None of the big questions Ana had at the beginning were really answered, and while the Newsoul phenomenon has a reason now, it wasn’t really dealt with either.

Maybe I’m being too judgmental about the book. I just feel that there was a lot that could have happened, but didn’t, because Ana was too wrapped up with Sam. Well, perhaps their relationship just wasn’t my cup of tea.
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Really cool concept. Im eager to see what happens next in the series! ( )

I thought this was a cute story. I really liked the characters, especially Ana and Sam. There wasn't much that happened for the majority of the book, it was mainly showing how Ana and Sam's relationship was growing and progressing. There's a cool action scene in the beginning of the book with the Slyph but then you don't really get much action again until towards the end. You also don't get any information about Newsouls or what happened to Ciana or why Ana was born until the end as well. All those questions are answered at the very end of the book. So majority of the book is mainly development of Ana and Sam's relationship. Their relationship is cute and I liked watching it grow, I just wished there was more that happened along the way. ( )

This book needed an editor. We start of by a whole bunch of really awkward and in-your-face sentences on how badly the main character has been abused by her mother, and it's completely pointless because later on the author does a great job of SHOWING it to us, rather than telling. I don't know why you'd wanna keep those informing sentences from the first twenty-something pages when you then do such a great job of showing how it has affected Ana, and keeps affecting her even after she left her mother.

The premise of this book is great, because it's so easy to explain. For 5,000 years everyone has been reincarnated over and over again, and then suddenly Ana shows up and she's brand-new. I mean, knowing NOTHING else about this world you immediately see how this would cause conflict in the community. And it does build up this conflict pretty nicely through-out the book, until we get a great revelation at the end. A revelation that wasn't mind-blowingly pulled out of thin air, but also not foreshaded to the point where you saw it coming from the first page. It was believable, and presented a whole bunch of other problems for the next books in the series, that I'm looking forward to reading.

There are things I didn't like about the book though, such as Ana's mother - Li - being stereotypically evil to the point where I couldn't even take her seriously. She only felt like threat when Ana thought of her or had flashbacks, but the characterization when she was in the story was too much.

Also, having sci-fi elements, such as laser guns and advanced technology, felt a bit misplaced in the fantasy setting. The technology didn't bother too much, it's reasonable that they would invent a device, for example, that could look at the genetic code of souls to know who was who ... but the laser guns is where I draw the line. I didn't really like them.

BUt yeah, while the book didn't start out well it actually surprised by how good it got once the story picked up pace. I didn't always relate to or agree with Ana, but I mostly understand her reactions and that's pretty important. Maybe not one of the greatest YA heroines of our time, but good enough for this story. ( )

See, Laura said, "She writes like you, you're going to love her," but I'd been in the middle of other books, and in other things, and sort of took it as a note, but sort of just let it slide, and I think it took a whole month to get back to this book she kept trying to wave in front of my nose.




Then? Now howdy. It's month later and I can still remember devouring this book in less than two days, wanting to suck the marrow from every word and world detail. How much I hated the page count getting lower and lower and lower. The way I fell in love with the main characters. The way I want to know the answers, the mystery, love the set up of the universe. How different and interesting it is.

Definitely in the top handful of favorite books for this year. ( )