Title: The Impossibility of Tomorrow (Incarnation #2)
Author: Avery Williams
Published: June, 2013 by Simon & Schuster
Pages: 375
Rating:  
Purchase: The Book Depository

Seraphina has been living for centuries, thanks to a special method of alchemy, but only recently has she really felt alive. She’s finally broken free from her controlling boyfriend, Cyrus, and after years of swapping bodies to preserve her immortality, is happily settled into a life worth sticking with. Because in this life, she has Noah.

But Noah might not be as trustworthy as he seems. After he delivers an ominous message that could only come from Cyrus, Sera is worried that her new friends and family will find out her secret. And as her suspicions extend beyond Noah, Sera is forced to wonder about her new friends as well: Could her old coven be disguising themselves right under her nose?

Will Sera have to move to another body—and take another life—or can she find a way to keep what she’s got, forever?

Final Thoughts:
I went into this one with the notion that I had really enjoyed the quick little read that was The Alchemy of Forever. I’m not sure if something changed since then or if time has altered my memories, but I just couldn’t get on board with this one the way I would have liked. It was all teen drama—and high school dance teen drama at that. Sure, the book has its cat and mouse aspect to it, but it was nothing too exciting. It’s another one of those ‘everything squashed into the last quarter’ kind of books.

The writing irked me occasionally, subjected to corny lines about things like the main character’s compass heart finding its true direction or something like that. Generally, it wasn’t too bad, but at those moments, it just took me out of the story, left staring at the page, unbelieving that someone wrote that. Okay, maybe some people find that kind of thing romantic, but I would have laughed, or at least rolled my eyes, if someone said that to me.

Using the mystery of who the main girl’s ex is currently possessing as a plot device, this book becomes practically a revolving door of red herrings. That’s a good thing, except that she seems like more of a ‘ask questions later’ kind of girl. She’s all prepared to kill off anyone she suspects—pushing them off cliffs, stabbing them, whatever works. I don’t know if that’s supposed to make her badass. To me, it didn’t. The gag-worthy over-the-top-ness of the romance soured any of those thoughts for me.

There are bits I enjoyed—like getting to see more of her host-body’s old life, the person she was, the things she’d hidden. Those kinds of things helped keep fresh the idea that this immortal girl wasn’t the only one ever there, that she’d stolen someone else’s life. That becomes easily lost with all of the dance preparation and relationship angst.

When the twists start coming, they come in in a heap. Lots of answers get rushed out as if we need reassurance that the author has indeed thought of everything, and that the red herrings have logical explanations. I like those ‘oh’ moments where you realise something and wonder how you could have missed those clues, but personally, I like clicking things into place with my own mind. Resolving all of these twists came and went much too fast. It felt like we were rushing so we could get back to the romance. I’m really torn over this series. Much like the Elixir series by Hilary Duff, I think this alchemic series would have been better served as a standalone.

Recommended to:
Those who like angst-filled high school romance.