Review: Ignite Me

Title/Author: Ignite Me by Tahereh Mafi
Publication Date/Publisher: February 4, 2014/HarperCollins
Series: Yes, #3 of Shatter Me Series
Source and Format: Bought
Rating: 3 starsFrom Goodreads:

Juliette now knows she may be the only one who can stop the Reestablishment. But to take them down, she’ll need the help of the one person she never thought she could trust: Warner. And as they work together, Juliette will discover that everything she thought she knew-about Warner, her abilities, and even Adam-was wrong.

I’m pretty disappointed in my disappointment with Ignite Me. It wasn’t bad…it just wasn’t the ending I thought it would be. I was never Team Adam or Team Warner, so that doesn’t really have anything to do with my feelings. I think I should have re-read Shatter Me and Unravel Me to reestablish an emotional connection to the series.

 

Ignite Me starts right after the final events of Unravel Me (I still haven’t read Destroy Me, so I don’t know where that fits into the storyline). Juliette is now in Warner’s home and she is PISSED. She’s just been shot in the chest and she is ready to start a war if it means taking down the Reestablishment.

 

Okay. I have no idea what the Reestablishment is for and how the world has wound up the way it is. I remember Juliette in the cell with Adam and being tortured and somehow escaping in Shatter Me. I remember them getting to Adam’s house and Omega Point with Kenji and all the other people with powers in Unravel Me. Chapter 62. A big fight. And then…

 

What? I have no idea. I felt pretty lost through the first quarter or so of Ignite Me, until everything became about Juliette transforming into a super badass and lots of very real sexytimes. Um, hello.

 

Outside of all that, I thought Ignite Me was less lyrical than the other two books. Did we lose the flowery prose because Juliette’s mind is stronger? Is it just the natural progression and maturation of Mafi’s writing? It definitely felt different.

 

The ending is extremely rushed. Like, “holy crap there’s only 10 pages left and we haven’t gotten the boss fight yet” rushed. Yet the month the gang takes to prepare for that showdown is drawn out in painstaking detail – too many words to describe what doors look like, wordy descriptions of a gym (several times) for anyone who has never heard of a dumbbell or treadmill, and of course, the Juliette angst.

 

Because I don’t remember the finer details of the first two books, Juliette’s growth from the nothing-girl I remember from that first prison cell to wannabe world leader was a lot to take in all at once. Her power is used differently in this book, and I didn’t really buy it – but I also don’t remember all the science-y stuff we learned about her abilities at Omega Point in Unravel Me.

 

Basically, it’s impossible task for me to judge this book on it’s own without the full series to back it up. My rating stands at 3 stars for now, but I have a feeling when I get a chance to re-read the series all at once my thoughts will be different.

 

Top Ten Tuesday: Top Ten Books I’ve Read So Far in 2013

Top Ten Tuesday is hosted by The Broke and the Bookish

This week, The Broke and the Bookish is asking us our Top Ten Books I’ve Read So Far in 2013.

1. Ready Player One by Ernest Cline
2. Jellicoe Road by Melina Marchetta
3. Graffiti Moon by Cath Crowley
4. Eleanor and Park by Rainbow Rowell
5. Code Name Verity by Elizabeth Wein
6. Scarlet by Marissa Meyer
7. Through the Ever Night by Veronica Rossi
8. The Miseducation of Cameron Post by Emily M. Danforth
9. Shatter Me by Tahereh Mafi
10. Unearthly by Cynthia Hand

Shatter Me

From Amazon:

“You can’t touch me,” I whisper.

I’m lying, is what I don’t tell him.

He can touch me, is what I’ll never tell him.

But things happen when people touch me.

Strange things.

Bad things.

No one knows why Juliette’s touch is fatal, but The Reestablishment has plans for her. Plans to use her as a weapon.

But Juliette has plans of her own.

After a lifetime without freedom, she’s finally discovering a strength to fight back for the very first time—and to find a future with the one boy she thought she’d lost forever.

This sounded really uninteresting to me for a long time (like two weeks). Then everyone started talking about it because everyone is already on Unravel Me, and it started sounding better.

This book is SO CLOSE to being crazy amazing for me, but I just can’t get there. The crossed out words really bothered me in the beginning, but it got less annoying as I read on – I read House of Leaves, I know annoying. Plus, I have a million questions that don’t seem to be getting any closer to being answered.

Let’s talk about the characters.

• Juliette: I…like her. I don’t think it’s believable that she would be in solitary confinement for 3 years and then immediately fall in love with the first person she sees and be so strong/powerful/angry. Instead of being the damaged/frail girl of her journal and inner monologue, she is outwardly the opposite of that.
• Adam: I’m okay with this. Still, not the most believable that he would love her from afar (while she also loved him from afar) and then spend years searching for her. But one of his most frequent descriptions is tattoos, so I’m on board.
• Warner: I HATE WARNER. WARNER CAN GO DIE IN A FIRE. He wears a pinkie ring. He forces himself on Juliette. Warner is the worst. (Every Warner is the worst, I’m still mad about Legally Blonde Warner.) I’ve seen some people have a change of heart about Warner (and heard all about Chapter 62)…so I’m really nervous. I read Destroy Me, from his POV, and I felt so unclean and skeeved out the whole time. He is so slimy.
• Kenji: Undecided. Seems okay, though.

The ending threw me. I didn’t expect it to turn into that kind of series. I don’t really like the ‘oooh, now you’re a superhero’ comment, but hopefully it was just an off-hand thing.