Ignite Me

Ignite Me

By: Taherah 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.

UGH. I have been putting off this review because I am still in the minority over a certain thing. But I really did enjoy this book. Taherah Mafi's writing is absolutely stunning, as always. She finds a way to keep you fully engrossed in this book even when there isn't all that much going on. I think this was a really wonderful ending to the series.

*Warning: this is the review of a series-ender, so it's going to include spoilers. Consider yourself forewarned.* 

Characters:
Juliette: I had faith in Taherah Mafi. I always trusted her to give Juliette some seriously fantastic character development. It's safe to say that's what she DELIVERED. I mean, by the end of this book Juliette is practically a different person, but it's wonderful because you can see the progression.
In this book Juliette is funny. And commanding. And initiating necessary confrontation. Basically she's finally stepping up to the plate. You can see the Juliette that been hiding in snippets of the other books, but this time that Juliette is in charge.
Juliette was my favorite part of this book.

Adam: Okay, this guy needs some discussing. I think he's a pretty sucky human being a lot of the time, but an extremely interesting character. I think he's incredibly realistic. I have met guys like him in my life, they think they are doing you favors, they are kind and sweet and protective until you do something they don't approve of. It was in his feelings like Juliette owed him something even months after they'd broken up. I actually threw my book when he pressed Kenji and Juliette's hands together. He risked his supposed best friend's life just because he didn't get his way.
That's disgusting. He's disgusting. (But like I said, well-written and interesting nonetheless.) I think the cool thing about him is that you can see that side of him crop up a few times through the other books. Taherah was leading us to this side of Adam all along.

Warner: Annnd this is where I start losing everyone. Hear me out. Warner is fascinating and his motive has always, always, always made sense. I think he is a well-written and unique character. Taherah Mafi has done a brilliant job crafting him.
But.
I can't say that I necessarily like him and Juliette for each other. It's just that I find it hard to excuse him for torturing another human being or for the emotional he caused Juliette in the beginning. I know that there are reasons for it and whatnot, but he just never seemed as regretful as I think I needed him to be.
That's not to say I didn't feel for him, because I did. His life was so tragic and difficult. It all tailored into his character and his development so well.

Kenji: Man, I love Kenji so much. His friendship with Juliette has been well worth the slow build up to it. They're hilarious together, but they find ways to be serious and supportive at the same time. I want desperately  wouldn't mind a whole series on Kenji's life and where he ends up after this series.

Plot:
Well, there wasn't much going on until the last fifty-or-so pages, but this book made me not care about that. I couldn't put it down. This series has always been much more character-driven, which ends up working  for it most of the time.

Writing:
Which brings us to, Taherah Mafi's writing. It's absolutely beautiful. Most of her prose flows more like a poem. Her words are lyrical. I think my favorite kind of writing is the kind that makes me sit back and think, 'wow. I would never have dreamed up that sentence in a thousand lifetimes, but now I have it inside my brain and it is gorgeous.'
That's what Taherah's writing does. I think part of this stems from that she understands every single inch of her characters' emotions and can describe so universally, yet so precisely that you feel it yourself.

Which explains why I've included about 100,000,000 quotes (even after narrowing it down).

Quotes:

"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."

 

"But there's something about the darkness, the stillness of this hour, I think, that creates a language of its own. There's a strange kind of freedom in the dark; a terrifying vulnerability we allow ourselves at exactly the wrong moment, tricked by the darkness into thinking it will keep our secrets. We forget that the blackness is not a blanket; we forget that the sun will soon rise. But in the moment, at least, we feel brave enough to say things we'd never say in the light."

 

"I want a pocketful of punctuation marks to end the thoughts he's forced into my head."

 

"Words, I think, are such unpredictable creatures. No gun, no sword, no army or king will ever be more powerful than a sentence. Swords may cut and kill, but words will stab and stay, burying themselves in our bones to become corpses we carry into the future, all the time digging and failing to rip their skeletons from our flesh."

 

"And we are quotation marks, inverted and upside down, clinging to one another at the end of this life sentence. Trapped by lives we did not choose."

 

"And every moment in the world drops dead just then, because they woke up and realized they'd never be as important as this one."

 

"Words are like seeds, I think, planted into our hearts at a tender age. They take root in us as we grow, settling deep into our souls. The good words plant well. They flourish and find homes in our hearts. They build trunks around our spines, steadying us when we're feeling most flimsy; planting our feet firmly when we're feeling most unsure. But the bad words grow poorly. Our trunks infest and spoil until we are hollow and housing the interests of others and not our own. We are forced to eat the fruit those words have borne, held hostage by the branches growing arms around our necks, suffocating us to death, one word at a time."

 

"We are hours and minutes reaching for the same second, holding hands as we spin forward into new days and the promise of something better. But though we'll know forward and we've known backward, we will never know the present. This moment and the next one and even the one that would've been right now are gone, already passed, and all we're left with are these tired bodies, the only proof that we've lived through time and survived it. It'll be worth it, though, in the end. Fighting for a lifetime of this."