Mark This Book Monday: Ignite Me by Tahereh Mafi!!!

Starting this week's Mark This Book Monday I have another one of the very awaited books for this year, and one that I devoured on release day! I have waited a bit longer to post the review since I wasn't sure the review could be entirely spoiler free!

Since it's also the final book in a dystopian trilogy, it's also part of my Dystopian Reading Challenge 2014 hosted at Blog Of Erised!

Ignite Me by Tahereh Mafi

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


Ignite Me was yet another extremely anticipated book, and it being again the final book in a trilogy, it was even more eagerly awaited.

The thing about Ignite Me is that after all the emotional distress I went through after Unravel Me and then reading Fracture Me... I was scared, really scared about my emotional well being with this one.

I have to say, I'm not sure I will be able to keep this review spoiler free completely, so please, please, please... if you haven't read the book yet or haven't started the series yet (what are you waiting for, really!?) do continue to read on at your own risk.

Ignite Me is not a book full of action, it does have some action and it does keep the dystopian elements there, but Ignite Me is mostly the culmination of Juliette's journey of self discovery and self acceptance and as such, is one hell of a brilliant read! I absolutely love seeing how Juliette's voice has been changing and evolving during the three books, and how in here she learns to not depend on others' acceptance of who she is, and she learns how to take charge of herself as a whole, with her powers, her past, present and future! My favourite quote that reflects how much I love this book and its message there it's: "I am enough, and I will always be".

Something else Ignite Me is very heavy on is the resolution of the love triangle, and I'm surprised that despite it all, and since Destroy Me, I haven't been annoyed about the love triangle, and I have been quite invested in it, after Unravel Me I was a Team Warner convert, even more after reading Fracture Me, and this one just cemented it without an inch of a doubt. Adam irritated me in Fracture Me, and in Ignite Me there were times I just wanted to punch him! The way his character was going made me almost hate him for a while, but I'm glad that he eventually stopped being the douchest of all douches.

I was also very happy that despite how much the romance took over this book, it was done in such a fantastic way! Juliette needed time to find herself, to learn how to train, how to be deal with the mess that was around her and somehow Warner managed to be there for her even if it was killing him! And the chemistry between these two... wow, off the charts! Tahereh Mafi does know how to make scenes that make you fan yourself!

One character that everyone loves in these books and even more in this one is Kenji, and I just have to agree! I adored Kenji to bits! He was there for Juliette, helping her, telling her off when he thought she needed it, making her laugh and being her best friend and allowing her to be his best friend too, because Kenji really needed someone to talk to after the horrible fall of Omega Point and the aftermath of it all. I loved the interactions of Kenji with Warner, and how they seemed to be able to not just be civil to each other (and given their past that was quite an achievement) but also to build up some sort of camaraderie and mutual respect after a while.

The final confrontation and high bout of action is at the very end of the book, but trust me... it doesn't mean that anything that lead to it was boring at all! There was so much going emotionally, that you are charged and ready to kick arse and find out what happens. I was not once bored during the book, though I must confess I wondered what kind of confrontation and resolution we'd get with what was left of the book. The fact is that ending is conclusive, but it's also left open enough for us to figure out whatever kind of future we want for the characters now. And I am okay with it.

With the emotional journey this book was and with how happy it made me with Juliette's attitude in the end and of course, how the love triangle was resolved, I cannot help but give this one 5 stars and maybe a few more! Emotionally this book is absolutely flawless, and so it's the brilliant and so visual and compelling writing! Just...  READ IT!






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Waiting On Wednesday #27!!

Waiting On Wednesday is a weekly feature hosted at Breaking The Spine  that spotlights those can't-wait-to-get-my-hands-on-them books that we are eagerly awaiting!


What book am I about-to-have-a-heart-attack waiting for this week? Ignite Me by Tahereh Mafi!

Goodreads Summary:


The heart-stopping conclusion to the New York Times bestselling Shatter Me series, which Ransom Riggs, bestselling author of Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children, called "a thrilling, high-stakes saga of self-discovery and forbidden love"

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.




Why am I eagerly awaiting Ignite Me by Tahereh Mafi? This is another one of my favourite series that ends this year, and would you look at that cover?? Shatter Me totally captured me with the amazing writing and the story of Juliette and Unravel Me managed to impress me even more! Now I can't wait to see how this story will end, but I'm scared... very scared of how Tahereh will end it! I fear for the characters!


What are you all (im)patiently awaiting this week?

Friday Reads: Mini Reviews: Fracture Me by Tahereh Mafi and The Last Stand of the New York Institute by Cassandra Clare!

Hello there! For this week's Friday Reads I'm gonna have another two mini reviews! Novellas are so much fun to read, and sometimes they can change your whole vision of a series!


Fracture Me by Tahereh Mafi

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


As usual, Tahereh Mafi shows us how amazing her writing is. This novella is Adam's POV of the ending of Unravel Me and it's a complete change of style from the rest of the series, Adam's voice so different from Juliette's!

The power of different POV's and how they come across from other character's POV's is very well shown here. We met Adam in Shatter Me and he ended up being Juliette's ally & friend and way more than that. And I was Team Adam if I had to choose from that triangle (which curiously enough is one of those triangles that are relevant and not so annoying). But then came Destroy Me, and I started to warm up to Warner much to my surprise, and then Unravel Me with its many twists and revelations and I find myself a bit more on Team Warner. I was hoping to see if Fracture Me would do for Adam the same thing that Destroy Me did for Warner, and maybe it did, but for me the reaction was quite the opposite.

Adam annoyed from the first page itself with his treatment of James, his kid brother. Yes, there's a lot of tension and stress but you don't treat your only family like that! And even though he redeems himself a bit on that front, it's clear through the pages of this novella that he just doesn't understand Juliette and despite his hoping for a HEA, he's be beyond frustrated with Juliette and her issues. He clearly can't begin to understand what Juliette issues really are, and with his protectiveness there's no way he'd help Juliette control and develop her powers.

This novella has done a wonderful job at bringing us into Adam's head, it might not have been what I would have hoped for, but you can't say that Mafi didn't do a fantastic job of giving him his own voice.

Well deserved 4 stars for this novella, and now I can't wait for Ignite Me even more than before!



The Last Stand of the New York Institute by Cassandra Clare

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


I think the closer we get to the events of TMI the more I like these novellas, and this one I will have an even bigger amount of love because we get to spend some more time with Tessa, and I really love Tessa Gray!

We get to see the start of the Circle and Magnus facing some of Valentine's allies and Valentine himself. We also are introduced to the doubts in Lucian and how the seed of his doubt in Valentine's great purpose might have been planted. We meet quite a few Shadowhunters that we will hear about later on. And we also get to meet Clary and her mum, and not only that we discover the origin of the last name that Jocelyn and Clary are using when they live as mundanes.

Magnus has some really conflicting feeling about this new generation of Shadowhunters and even more for some of the families that he once knew, but despite everything he seems to be quite prone to niceness the older he gets and less likely to hold a grudge. I guess when you live centuries it might seem quite pointless.

A very short but entertaining read, quite enlightening adding some more perspective to the Circle and the Uprising. A 4 star read.



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Mark This Book Monday: Unravel Me by Tahereh Mafi!

And as promised, here I am with another book review for this Monday's second Mark This Book Monday!

Next up is the second book on a trilogy about Juliette, a girl with great powers that has been shunned from human contact all her life, since her touch is lethal. If you haven't read book one, Shatter Me, I highly recommend it to you, and here is my review of book two:

Unravel Me by Tahereh Mafi.

Four very well deserved stars for this continuation of Juliette's story.

Once again, Tahereh Mafi has managed to hook me up with her unique writing style and her way to ravel and unravel emotions and plots, and I've finished another book about Juliette's story in a day.

The story picks up on where Shatter Me left us, with Juliette at Omega Point and trying to get used to being surrounded by people. The first few chapters of the book are also parallel to Destroy Me, the novella told from Warner's POV, or so it seemed to me. The story progresses a lot in this second book, and it never gave me a filling of being just a filler or bridge book, it had so much going on and added so much to the story!

Juliette still struggles a lot to accept herself and to relate to others. She still thinks of herself as a monster and shies away from others scared of hurting them or being hurt by their fear and rejection of the monster they'd surely see in her. Castle, the leader of Omega Point expected Juliette to settle more easily and to make efforts to join in, but he couldn't figure out how hard that'd be for someone that has been through what Juliette was. Put her ability, her awful past and a year of full isolation together with the angst and hormones of a teenager, and I'm surprised Juliette still has any sanity left at all!

The state of the world is a mess, the common people are starting to revolt, the Supreme commander has decided to teach both the rebels and Warner a lesson, and in this book we learn how much more twisted and horrible he is, and we've also given quite a few shocking revelations, that make the already messy emotional shitstorm that is Adam + Juliette + Warner a bigger and more complicated one!

For those against love triangles... well, it all gets messier and more "triangly" in this book, and to my very own surprise, it didn't put me off the story at all. All the emotional mess simply made me understand all three of them better, and even relate to all three of them. Warner is not just the horrible villian he began as in Shatter Me, and I've come to understand him and not hate as Juliette has.

There are fights, both emotional and physical, and Juliette learns how to kick arse and how to try and accept that others might not see her as a monster, and that if she lets them come closer, she can begin to feel wholly human again.

The book ends not in a proper proper cliffhanger, but it does leave you aching for more, for a bigger fight and for Juliette to finally come on her own, and own who she is. And frankly, to see what all Adam and Warner are gonna do, cause I'm not sure who I'm rooting for anymore!