Review: Ignite Me by Tahereh Mafi

Ignite Me (Shatter Me, #3) by Tahereh Mafi
Published: February 4th 2014 by HarperCollins
Pages: 421

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.

In Shatter Me, Tahereh Mafi created a captivating and original story that combined the best of dystopian and paranormal and was praised by Publishers Weekly as "a gripping read from an author who's not afraid to take risks." The sequel, Unravel Me, blew readers away with heart-racing twists and turns, and New York Times bestselling author Kami Garcia said it was "dangerous, sexy, romantic, and intense." Now this final book brings the series to a shocking and climactic end.

Aaron Warner Anderson, chief commander and regent of Sector 45, son of the supreme commander of The Reestablishment.
He has a soft spot for fashion.

Actual rating: 4.5 stars

Tahereh Mafi started the novel off the way her fans want it to be: Juliette in a room with Warner. The first couple of chapters were all about the development of their relationship and quite a few things getting cleared up. Although their conversations took up a lot of space, I absolutely loved reading them. Juliette and Warner had this connection from the start of the series and was only getting more and more beautiful. Chapter fifty-five was the best chapter out of the entire series, and the chapters after that were just as well done. We know from there who Juliette is going to end up with. It gave me such a happy feeling, I loved it. Their relationship had a lot of struggles and didn't start in the best way, yet I'm so glad of how everything worked out. I wouldn't have wanted it any other way.

Because the plot opened up with them talking most of the time, hiding, I could say I was worried to have this same plot as Mockingjay by Suzanne Collins. However, when things started going, I think it didn't. The pace took a while to get going, but it was kind of worth it. When the action made its first appearance, the plot got more and more intriguing. After the love problems were almost over I got to scenes with a perfect balance between dialogues and action. I flew through them, and before I knew it I read the last scentence and closed it. Can we take a moment to realise how short the climax actually was? The book builds up a huge expectation of a massive battle scene. All we actually get was a really short scene that could have been better. It just felt a bit rushed to me. There was something missing, and I'm just sad I didn't got that feeling when turning the last page.

When I got close to the end of the book, I came to the conclusion that this series has been more of a journey of character development instead of a dystopian novel. The world itself couldn't be suited into the dystopian genre, despite what everyone says. We never got an explanation for what happened and besides the Reestablishment, how things go around there. Not that I loved it less because it didn't bother me anymore when I got further into this trilogy. All the other things were done so well, mainly the characters and the romance. Especially the romance is the thing that's critical to the plot. However, when I say critical to the plot, I mean the plot was filled with dialogues of Juliette's love problems. It certainly took a while for everything to work out. I can understand why Juliette was sick of everything. After a while, so was I.

The so-called "poëtic writing" (I wasn't a fan) has been getting better ever since I read Destroy Me, and now I think it has found its place. Mafi has realised that the crossouts made the series original, but in no way effective. In the way they've been absent in the series may have something to do with Juliette's development from a whiny girl to a sort of a stronger woman. Even though this woman had her moments with the love triangle, she turned out to be a character I liked way better in Ignite Me than in the previous books. Speaking of love triangle, I think I can sort myself into the 'Team Warner', because it just seemed that Adam was on his period during the entire book. He's suddenly so short-tempered. Of course this has to do with the love triangle, but I remember him being sweet and all in the first book.  One can't change this quickly, or is this just me? I really wanted to know if that's just an act or if he's really so capricious and emotionally unstable. I also felt like the complicated relationship between the two should have gotten better closure. Even if it was jut a little talk to finally figure everything out and let Adam move on. Besides Adam, Juliette and their special relationship, I actually loved how all the other characters turned out. Realistic and down-to-earth, that's what I love.

The Shatter Me trilogy has started out as a dissapointment, yet one way or another it found a way to make me fall in love with the second book. I don't know if Ignite Me was the best of all three, but I think this trilogy is one to remember. The author fulfilled the biggest wish of the entire fandom, and that's definitely something to leave me statisfied.