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Friday, June 20, 2014

Book Review: Ignite Me by Tahereh Mafi




Ignite Me (Shatter Me #3) by Tahereh Mafi
Genre: Young Adult (Paranormal Romance/Dystopian)
Date Published: February 5, 2013
Publisher: HarperCollins

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.”

With Omega Point destroyed, Juliette doesn’t know if the rebels, her friends, or even Adam are alive. But that won’t keep her from trying to take down The Reestablishment once and for all. Now she must rely on Warner, the handsome commander of Sector 45. The one person she never thought she could trust. The same person who saved her life. He promises to help Juliette master her powers and save their dying world . . . but that’s not all he wants with her.

The Shatter Me series is perfect for fans who crave action-packed young adult novels with tantalizing romance like Divergent by Veronica Roth, The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins, and Legend by Marie Lu. Tahereh Mafi has created a captivating and original story that combines 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.” Now this final book brings the series to a shocking and satisfying end.

Ignite Me is the third and final book in the Shatter Me Trilogy by Tahereh Mafi. I'm so sad that this is the last book. There was more changes and growth among the characters of this trilogy than I have read in any other series or trilogy out there. Since all three books are from Juliette's point of view, you really see how she goes from the little mouse of a person in Shatter Me to the person she becomes in Ignite Me. She had a lot of emotional hurts to over come and a lot of things about herself that she needed to come to terms with through this series. The author portrayed her attitudes and state of mind flawlessly through all three books. Both Adam and Warner surprised me in this book! Even though I want to go on and on about why, I can't because that would reveal too many spoilers. My team status still hasn't changed. Add him to my book boyfriend favorites. Team Warner all the way! I want a friend like Kenji! We all need a Kenji! I am beyond thrilled with this Trilogy! Authors take not, this is how you properly end a dystopian trilogy!

Chapter 1

I am an hourglass.

My seventeen years have collapsed and buried me from the inside out. My legs feel full of sand and stapled together, my mind overf lowing with grains of indecision, choices unmade and impatient as time runs out of my body. The small hand of a clock taps me at one and two, three and four, whispering hello, get up, stand up, it’s time to
wake up
wake up

“Wake up,” he whispers.

A sharp intake of breath and I’m awake but not up, surprised but not scared, somehow staring into the very des- perately green eyes that seem to know too much, too well. Aaron Warner Anderson is bent over me, his worried eyes inspecting me, his hand caught in the air like he might’ve been about to touch me.

He jerks back.

He stares, unblinking, chest rising and falling.

“Good morning,” I assume. I’m unsure of my voice, of the hour and this day, of these words leaving my lips and this body that contains me.

I notice he’s wearing a white button-down, half untucked into his curiously unrumpled black slacks. His shirtsleeves are folded, pushed up past his elbows.

His smile looks like it hurts.

I pull myself into a seated position and Warner shifts to accommodate me. I have to close my eyes to steady the sudden dizziness, but I force myself to remain still until the feeling passes.

I’m tired and weak from hunger, but other than a few general aches, I seem to be fine. I’m alive. I’m breathing and blinking and feeling human and I know exactly why.

I meet his eyes. “You saved my life.” I was shot in the chest.

Warner’s father put a bullet in my body and I can still feel the echoes of it. If I focus, I can relive the exact moment it happened; the pain: so intense, so excruciating; I’ll never be able to forget it.

I suck in a startled breath.

I’m finally  aware of the familiar foreignness of this room and I’m quickly seized by a panic that screams I did not wake up where I fell asleep. My heart is racing and I’m inching away from him, hitting my back against the head- board, clutching at these sheets, trying not to stare at the chandelier I remember all too well—

“It’s okay—” Warner is saying. “It’s all right—”

“What am I doing here?” Panic, panic; terror clouds my consciousness. “Why did you bring me here again—?”

“Juliette, please, I’m not going to hurt you—”

“Then why did you bring me here?” My voice is starting to break and I’m struggling to keep it steady. “Why bring me back to this hellhole—”

“I had to hide you.” He exhales, looks up at the wall. “What? Why?”

“No one knows you’re alive.” He turns to look at me. “I had to get back to base. I needed to pretend everything was back to normal and I was running out of time.”

I force myself to lock away the fear.

I study his face and analyze his patient, earnest tone. I remember him last night—it must’ve been last night—I remember his face, remember him lying next to me in the dark. He was tender and kind and gentle and he saved me, saved my life. Probably carried me into bed. Tucked me in beside him. It must’ve been him.

But when I glance down at my body I realize I’m wearing clean clothes, no blood or holes or anything anywhere and I wonder who washed me, wonder who changed me, and worry that might’ve been Warner, too.

“Did you . . .” I hesitate, touching the hem of the shirt

I’m wearing. “Did—I mean—my clothes—”

He smiles. He stares until I’m blushing and I decide I hate him a little and then he shakes his head. Looks into his palms. “No,” he says. “The girls took care of that. I just carried you to bed.”

“The girls,” I whisper, dazed.

The girls.

Sonya and Sara. They were there too, the healer twins, they helped Warner. They helped him save me because he’s the only one who can touch me now, the only person in the world who’d have been able to transfer their healing power safely into my body.

My thoughts are on fire.

Where are the girls what happened to the girls and where is Anderson and the war and oh God what’s happened to Adam and Kenji and Castle and I have to get up I have to get up I have to get up and get out of bed and get going but I try to move and Warner catches me. I’m off-balance, unsteady; I still feel as though my legs are anchored to this bed and I’m suddenly unable to breathe, seeing spots and feeling faint. Need up. Need out.

Can’t.

“Warner.” My eyes are frantic on his face. “What hap- pened? What’s happening with the battle—?”

“Please,” he says, gripping my shoulders. “You need to start slowly; you should eat something—”

“Tell me—”

“Don’t you want to eat first? Or shower?” “No,” I hear myself say. “I have to know now.” One moment. Two and three.

Warner takes a deep breath. A million more. Right hand over left, spinning the jade ring on his pinkie finger over and over and over and over “It’s over,” he says.

“What?”

I say the word but my lips make no sound. I’m numb, somehow. Blinking and seeing nothing.

“It’s over,” he says again. “No.”

I exhale the word, exhale the impossibility. He nods. He’s disagreeing with me.

“No.” “Juliette.”

“No,” I say. “No. No. Don’t be stupid,” I say to him. “Don’t be ridiculous,” I say to him. “Don’t lie to me goddamn you,” but now my voice is high and broken and shaking and “No,” I gasp, “no, no, no—”

I actually stand up this time. My eyes are filling fast with tears and I blink and blink but the world is a mess and I want to laugh because all I can think is how horrible and beautiful it is, that our eyes blur the truth when we can’t bear to see it.

The ground is hard.

I know this to be an actual fact because it’s suddenly pressed against my face and Warner is trying to touch me but I think I scream and slap his hands away because I already know the answer. I must already know the answer because I can feel the revulsion bubbling up and unsettling my insides but I ask anyway. I’m horizontal and somehow still tipping over and the holes in my head are tearing open and I’m staring at a spot on the carpet not ten feet away and I’m not sure I’m even alive but I have to hear him say it.

“Why?” I ask.

It’s just a word, stupid and simple.

“Why  is the battle over?”  I ask.  I’m not breathing anymore, not really speaking at all; just expelling letters through my lips.

Warner is not looking at me.

He’s looking at the wall and at the f loor and at the bed- sheets and at the way his knuckles look when he clenches his fists but no not at me he won’t look at me and his next words are so, so soft.

“Because they’re dead, love. They’re all dead.”

Check out my reviews of the other books in this amazing series.


author
Tahereh Mafi is the New York Times and USA Today bestselling author of the SHATTER ME series. She was born in a small city somewhere in Connecticut and currently resides in Santa Monica, California, where she drinks too much caffeine and finds the weather to be just a little too perfect for her taste.
When unable to find a book, she can be found reading candy wrappers, coupons, and old receipts.
SHATTER ME is her first novel.

Foreign rights have sold in 25+ territories to-date and film rights have been optioned by 20th Century Fox.

Her work is represented by Jodi Reamer of Writers House, LLC.

To learn more about Tahereh Mafi and her books, visit her website.You can also find her on GoodreadsFacebookPinterestInstagram, and Twitter.

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