Marshmallow reviews Ignite Me by Tahereh Mafi

Marshmallow has already reviewed Shatter Me and Unravel Me, the first two books of Tahereh Mafi’s Shatter Me trilogy. Today she talks about the third and last book of the series, Ignite Me, published first in 2014. As Sprinkles finds this series interesting, she is asking questions and taking notes.

(The author wrote a handful of short novellas later within the same story world, that were interspersed into the timeline of the three original books. Then she wrote three more books to continue the main story line. But when Ignite Me was published, it was presented as the end of the series.)

Sprinkles: So Marshmallow, you are finally done with the third book in the series. How do you feel?

Marshmallow: Relieved.

S: Yes, some of the conflicts and the main problems of the series have finally been resolved, right?

M: Yes, mostly.

S: So can you tell us a bit about the main plot?

M: This book starts about when the second book, Unravel Me, ended. So Juliette and Warner are going to take on the Reestablishment. And Omega Point, where Juliette’s friends in the resistance were living, is now destroyed. So Juliette is really angry and wants revenge.

S: I can understand that.

M: It turns out that her friends are not all dead, but the destruction was pretty extensive. But the main thrust of the book is about how Juliette and Warner figure out how they will take down the Reestablishment.

S: So wait, perhaps we should say that people should read the first two books if they want to get anything out of this book.

M: Yes, definitely. I expect that the two novellas would also be useful, but I have not read those yet, and so they are not as necessary.

S: Okay. From what I understand, Destroy Me and Fracture Me mainly complemented the stories told in the other books. But of course since we have not read them, we cannot say for sure what we are missing.

M: Yes. But I felt like diving into this book after Unravel Me felt alright.

S: Okay. So now we know that the author wrote several other books after this one, but when this one was published, it was promoted as the end of the Shatter Me books. Did it feel that way to you?

M: In a way, maybe a not totally satisfying way, but it was an end. I mean, the main conflict is resolved. And when the book ends, Juliette and her friends are at the beginning of a new world, in some sense. But there is a lot to do. How are they going to save the world?

S: So in some sense, the author was probably right to write a few more books to tell us those stories too, no?

M: I suppose. I mean, in a lot of books, it is like, there is a big struggle, and eventually the bad guys are dead and gone, and then what? I think the next books probably tell that part of the story. The then what part.

S: Yes, that seems to be the case, from what I am understanding when I read things on the web about the other books in the series.

M: So it is in that sense not quite an ending.

S: Maybe a good place to pause.

M: Yes, one could say that.

S: I know you felt very strongly about the main character Juliette.

M: Yes, I actually disliked her, especially in this book. And I know that there are a lot of readers who love her and think she is so vulnerable and compassionate despite all that has happened to her, but to me she does not really feel very compassionate, especially in this book. She seems quite self-absorbed and not very empathetic. She cannot understand how other people might be in pain. For example, after the destruction of Omega Point, she is all angry and wants revenge, but she does not seem to register how her friends are in pain and mourning and so broken.

S: I can see you really do not find her a very compelling character.

M: I would not say that. I would say “likeable”. I do think she is compelling, I want to learn what she is going through, I want to continue to read her story, but I do not think I like her, you know?

S: I see.

M: I am also quite upset about her relationships with Adam and Warner.

S: I know you said this book is even mushier than the other two books. Is that what you mean?

M: Well, not just that. I felt like Adam and Juliette had a relationship that seemed more based on human qualities and emotions and affection, while Warner and Juliette seem to simply be physically attracted to one another. I mean, Juliette tries to rationalize things by saying that Adam was holding her back from her power, and fulfilling her potential, and how Warner was actually a good person but he had been deeply wounded by his father, but I am not sure I buy all of that.

S: Okay, I did not read this third book just yet, but I do agree with you that her relationship with Warner seemed almost purely physical to me, too, from the start. Then again, to me, Juliette does not seem to be much of a thinking and feeling character.

M: Wait, she is a very feeling character! She has a lot of emotions!

S: I agree. What I meant was that she had only strong passions, not really affection, care, sympathy, empathy, and so on.

M: Okay, something like that. She does not strike me as a nice person really. In the dystopian world the book is set in, everyone has suffered so much. Juliette herself was locked up by herself for over two hundred days. However, she sometimes seems to forget that everyone else in the story has also suffered as much as her.

Juliette annoys me somewhat in the same way that Sophie from the School for Good and Evil books did. But then again Sophie at some point decides to be a villain and she is a good villain. Juliette is a hero, but her romantic life is so much at the center of everything that her heroic development is not really fulfilled.

S: Well, this is supposed to be a romance.

M: Yes, I understand the author is writing a romance here, but I really really wished that she would focus more on the world falling apart and these young people trying to put it back together. I really found the world-building and the plot to be very compelling, but maybe I am not the right reader for a romance. I felt the characters were not developed enough, other than romantically.

S: I can totally see that. I think the author’s writing voice is fluid, and she uses a very emphatic and evocative language.

M: Yes, I agree with that. I think her writing is really beautiful. But I really wished the plot and character development were more front and center rather than the romance …

S: You wanted a full-blown dystopian novel, nothing mushy!

M: I think I can handle some mushy, and actually, I think that romantic relationships in books, especially in series where the protagonists are growing up, can add a lot to the character development and can be really meaningful. For example, in the Harry Potter books, I think the romantic parts were not bad but made the characters more realistic and more endearing. In the Percy Jackson books, some of the romantic moments are really cute and show what a healthy relationship between young people could look like. In these cases, I think that these romantic relationships are not just beneficial to the characters and the plot, but almost necessary for the sake of realism and make the entire series / book more enjoyable and memorable. However, in this book series, I felt like the romantic aspect invaded the entire plot of the story, putting any character development or plot line in the back seat. When I started reading this series, I was expecting an epic saga about a group of brave teenagers facing down an unjust government while confronting their inner demons and trauma with a side serving of romantic relationships. I was unhappy to find that the romantic side of the story took over the entire series, with more than half of the book being spent on Juliette’s romantic life. The romance part could have been important for character development, but I felt like it was not. And it stole away time from other aspects and made the plot and resolution of the book series feel like an afterthought.

S: I think I get it. So I am guessing your rating for this book will not be 100%.

M: No. In fact, I’d rather not rate it. I think I was not the right reader for this book. I did not expect the romance to so much overwhelm the main dystopian plot line. The plot had a lot of potential and I felt like the romance stunted it. So if a reader is looking for teen romance with a strong serving of teen angst in the middle of a catastrophic environmental breakdown of the world order, maybe this is the book for them.

S: Fair enough. I think I will read the book, too, so I can make up my own mind about it.

M: Yes, I hope you do so we can talk more about the book together.

S: Sounds like a plan. So maybe we can wrap up this review. What would you tell our readers?

M: Stay tuned for more amazing reviews from the book bunnies!