'Ignite Me'

by Sarah K.

The Shatter Me trilogy, written by Tahereh Mafi, is a dynamic young adult dystopian thriller and romance. At age seventeen Juliette Ferrars is given up by her hateful parents and pushed into the hands of their country’s controlling, oppressive government, The Reestablishment. Juliette was born with what she believes to be a curse, her touch, the touch of her bare skin, is lethal. The Reestablishment, in particular a young military captain Warner, wishes to use her as a weapon against the people. While being held captive at Warner’s base she meets Adam, a boy whom she knew in her childhood. Adam is kind and loving to her and when she discovers he is immune to her touch they make an escape from the base together. However, in their escape another person is found out to be immune to Juliette’s curse, Warner. 

            Against all odds Juliette and Adam escape the military base, with some help, and find themselves in the hands of a different camp. This camp is called Omega Point and is full of people with powers similar to Juliette’s who plan to fight to take down The Reestablishment. Juliette and Adam join their ranks and are content, until they take in a new prisoner, someone Juliette never hoped to see again, Aaron Warner. Her interactions with him are different, seeing as she is the dominant one now and he is the one being guarded. In this situation she learns there is a lot more to this blonde military captain than she first thought.

            In the last book of the trilogy, Ignite Me, Juliette is coping with the destruction of Omega Point and most of the people in it. She takes refuge with Warner at his military camp, this time not as his prisoner but as his partner, because now they both have a similar goal, to take down the Reestablishment. She finds survivors from Omega Point, Adam among them, and they all hide out at Warner’s camp while they train together. Juliette has trouble dealing with her loss of feelings for Adam along with the complicated relationship she’s developing with Warner, who has never kept his affections for her a secret. She comes a long way from seeing her touch as a curse, and learns that it is power and she trains to find ways to control it.

            The novel Ignite Me was an amazing conclusion to the Shatter Me trilogy. It wrapped everything up perfectly and gave everything the reader could have wanted. Mafi did a great job of mirroring the destruction of Juliette and Adam’s relationship with the build up of Juliette and Warner’s. The best point, however, was the character development. Juliette went from a frightened little child, terrified of her deadly touch, to a girl in recovery, realizing maybe she can learn to use it correctly, to a strong, brave woman who is aware of the power in her skin. You follow Juliette through this journey and there is never a missing step, never a moment where you wonder how did we end up here? You can always see where she is coming from and that’s what makes it so believable.

            Every character is three dimensional, and they all have different personalities that fit them. There is comic relief found in one character, Kenji, and his dialogue is written so superbly well that I found myself laughing in my seat. All the dialogue was fantastic, it flowed and was realistic. The quantity of things said in just written body language or emotions also added into the story intensely, because you had to read into how people were behaving, not just their words. There were some things written in the novel that were almost like poetry, and it added a sort of dark beauty that was fitting to the situation of the characters.

            The plot of the story was one of the best points about it. Everything made sense, there were no plot holes or things that didn’t add up. There was a certain magic element to it, due to the powers certain people possessed, but even those were explained fairly well as a sort of energy buildup in the earth. Ignite Me contains many different genres besides it’s main ones. It’s got comedy, action, tragedy, and it’s all written fantastically.

            If you enjoy romance thrillers with flawless development than the Shatter Me trilogy is a must read. The books are relatively fast paced and when reading Ignite Me you won’t be able to put it down. Mafi leaves you on the edge of your couch with her unique writing style and ability to make even the most unrelatable situations believable. You can find Ignite Me in bookstores or libraries near you.