Review: Ignite Me by Tahereh Mafi

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.

Title: Ignite Me
Author: Tahereh Mafi
Series: Shatter Me #3
Publisher: HarperCollins
Publication Date: February 4th 2014

Rating: 4 stars







Thoughts:

Ignite Me did several things: it made me laugh, it made me feel sad, it made me angry, it made me happy. While the overall plot may have been a bit lacking, this book managed to get many emotions out of me. 

I absolutely loved Juliette's growth in Ignite Me. Gone is the insecure and scared girl from the first two books - Juliette has finally come into her own, and it's awesome. Let me tell you, she was a complete badass. She finally accepted who she was and what she could do, and in doing that, she gained confidence. I loved confident Juliette fiercely. I wasn't too sold on her character in the previous books, but I see now how it was necessary for her to be that way. She isn't anymore, though, and I could cheer her on whenever she did a particularly badass thing. To be honest - yes, her character is a little bit special snowflake-y. She has one power that has many aspects, which caused Juliette to seem a little too badass at times. I personally didn't mind - for once. I was too busy enjoying who Juliette had become.

The side characters were really good too. Mafi managed to make them all feel different, even though they don't all get equal screen time. Kenji remains to be awesome. Seriously, he's one of my favorite characters ever. He's so funny and honest and always says exactly what he should say. And the dialogue was perfect. There were a couple of situations that put a huge grin on my face, or made me laugh out loud. The whole crew has awesome dialogue, and it's the kind of dialogue that I could imagine my friends and I having (especially the 'no more talking' coversation - I loved that one). 

And, of course, WARNER. I'm on Team Warner, definitely! He was extremely swoony and I really, really loved the way his character developed. We definitely get to see more sides of him and I understood him better in this novel. His character deepens and I just loved him so much. And no, I won't tell you who Juliette ends up with ;) But I was happy with the way Mafi resolved this love triangle - we get to see how both boys appeal to different sides of her and I could definitely understand why she chose who she did. 

The plot, however, was a bit lacking. The whole book is basically a build-up to the ending, which I expected to be the 'grand finale'. Instead, the whole thing is over in a few pages. I also found a few details to be quite unbelievable, but I found that the awesome characters and many FEELS you will get from Ignite Me made up for it.

In all, a really satisfying series ender! While the ending felt a bit rushed and short to me, Ignite Me features a fantastic cast of characters and made me feel nearly every emotion. I definitely recommend the Shatter Me-series, and I think that of the three, I can recommend Ignite Me the most. If you've started this series, you'll definitely want to read this!