REVIEW: Ignite Me by Tahereh Mafi

Ignite Me opens shortly after the Fracture Me novella. Let’s not talk about that. In Ignite Me, Juliette has come to some realizations… and we as readers are along for the ride. She’s stronger, bolder, ready to fight for the things she had taken away from her. And I like it!

Let’s go ahead and start with the things that I didn’t like… because I need to get them out of the way.
First, the end felt completely rushed to me. I am struggling with the idea that we didn’t get much of a confrontation with Anderson… he was made into this big huge bad guy and we got very little explanation and we never really got much of a final show down. I remember being at about 80% thinking ‘what the hell is going on … there isn’t much room left for the fight’, and I was right. I wanted more in that respect. My biggest complaint is that Warner never gets his… or even Adam for that matter. Throughout Ignite Me, we learn bits and pieces of more of the abuse that Warner faced from his father, and yet we aren’t told why… we aren’t given any background on why he was the way he was and why he did the things he did to his family. Additionally he wasn’t really a presence in this book even though he was the ultimate reason for the story. He’s only mentioned in passing as a reason for the training and the planning and the tension, but I didn’t feel that he was that big bad villain because we only got the second hand story. It felt like this story wasn’t about the confrontation… about the over throwing of the re-establishment… instead it was about the relationships.
*SIGH* Next we have Adam. I am conflicted on this. I seriously loved Adam in book 1, and while you expect some character change in a series, I truly felt that this was not the same guy we met in book 1. Juliette even says it several times. ‘That Adam would never say this…’ or ‘That Adam would never do this…’ and it’s true he never would have, and I’m not sure that there was enough in book 2 and even book 3 to warrant the drastic change he went through. I can’t help but think that Mafi made him into this total asshat to justify Juliette’s decisions. And for me, that wasn’t necessary. Ultimately her reasoning and her character evolution made sense enough to me without completely ruining a character I had come to love. Additionally, I never felt like we got any kind of wrap up or resolution for their relationship. I wanted words of understanding and that never truly happens. I know, I know, that’s not entirely realistic in real life… but I just wanted something here to know that despite how shitty he was and the things they said and did to each other, that their friendship was intact by the end.
Now… for the things I liked!
I don’t care who you are, which team you’re on, or who you were cheering for… I don’t believe you can walk away from this book and not see the chemistry that is there between Warner and Juliette. From the infamous chapter 62 in book 2 it just couldn’t be denied. I know that one argument is that he didn’t truly love who she was, he was obsessed with her and what she could do for him and that wasn’t healthy. But I never truly believed that. Especially after reading Shatter Me and it’s only solidified in this book… the things that Juliette thought (and yes, that we thought) he wanted her for were never really true… were never really accurate. It made sense to me that they would have this connection. Mafi does an amazing job, as I said above, about explaining Juliette’s evolution and what Adam meant to her both then and now.
I love that Juliette comes into her own… As you see Juliette’s character change and get stronger, that’s when the issues seem to arise between Adam and Juliette and there is one section I highlighted where Juliette comes to a realization about Adam’s feelings for her versus Warner’s feelings for her and I found myself nodding while reading it. One of my favorite passages from her was this:

“This isn’t about Adam or Warner,” I tell him, “This is about me and what I want. This is about me finally understanding where I want to be in ten years. Because I’m going to be alive, Kenji. I will be alive in ten years, and I’m going to be happy. I’m going to be strong. And I don’t need anyone to tell me that anymore. I am enough, and I always will be.”

Kenji should be on every single person’s favorite person ever list. Ignite Me focuses on some heavy things going on with our main characters… there is a lot of anger and sadness and struggle, yet I found myself laughing and enjoying almost every single scene that Kenji was in. He brought a bit of levity to the whole thing. I love his obnoxiousness, his ego, his sarcasm and how he knows just how to work a scene.

“Hey–jazz hands!” Kenji barks. “Get your ass back over here.” He makes it a point to look as irritated as possible. “Back to work. And this time, focus. You’re not an ape. Don’t just throw your shit everywhere.”

I loved everything about Warner in this book – he has lived a solitary life where he was abused and never had anyone to lean on and that’s evident in his personality in so many ways. He doesn’t do friends, he doesn’t do family, and despite that he has bent over backwards for Juliette knowing she didn’t return his feelings and the hurt that causes him is much more apparent in this book, yet… he never truly gives up on her. He consistently is there for her and does things to benefit her… not just him and he’s not as selfish as we’ve previously been led to believe. The way he views himself is a bit heartbreaking. He’s never had anyone to tell him he was important, that he was loved and that he’s more than just a soldier in an army.

“I have no one to impress,” he says. “No one who cares about what happens to me. I’m not in the business of making friends, love. My job is to lead an army, and it’s the only thing I’m good at. No one,” he says, “would be proud of the things I’ve accomplished. My mother doesn’t even know me anymore. My father thinks I’m weak and pathetic. My soldiers want me dead. The world is going to hell. And the conversations I have with you are the longest I’ve ever had.”

Mafi has an amazing way with words… putting them together to make beautiful sentences and paragraphs and there were a lot of passages that I highlighted just because the words were so pretty! I mean… I don’t think anyone else in the world could have created some of these passages…

“Every vertebra, every knuckle, both kneecaps, both hips. I am a pile of bones on the floor and no one knows it but me. I am a broken skeleton with a beating heart.”