Riot Grrrl Reads

Ignite Me
By Tahereh Mafi

Source: Personal purchase, paperback
Genre: Young Adult, Dystopian, Romance

Goodreads Synopsis:

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.

Overall, this was a really good book. I was disappointed with the ending, yet still deeply loved it.

My reaction:

Unravel Me 
By Tahereh Mafi

Source: Personal purchase, paperback
Genre: Young Adult, Dystopian, Romance

Goodreads Synopsis:

tickticktickticktickit's almosttime for war.
Juliette has escaped to Omega Point. It is a place for people like her—people with gifts—and it is also the headquarters of the rebel resistance.
She's finally free from The Reestablishment, free from their plan to use her as a weapon, and free to love Adam. But Juliette will never be free from her lethal touch.
Or from Warner, who wants Juliette more than she ever thought possible.In this exhilarating sequel to Shatter Me, Juliette has to make life-changing decisions between what she wants and what she thinks is right. Decisions that might involve choosing between her heart—and Adam's life.

The thing that I disliked most about the book was Juliette. She was still as equally as annoying as she was in Shatter Me. Although she didn’t cross out almost every word, she was still very emotional all the time, and in my opinion, over sensitive. She was interesting to read about, but just irritated me quite a lot.

Another problem I had with this book was that nothing really happened. This is the same with the whole series - it’s a lot of talking about what they’re going to do, though they never really do it. Also, a lot of the action is rushed or skimmed over because Juliette is never there. Everyone protects her, so she is never in any of the fight scenes. This is a shame because it would have made the book a bit different and made me more interested.

Nevertheless, I still really enjoyed the book. My favourite element was definitely the writing style. Everyone I know raves about Tahereh Mafi’s lyrical writing style - it’s so vivid so I can really picture the world clearly. I know I will read any future work of hers - no matter what the genre - because I am so in love with her poetic style.

Overall, this is a great book. I highly enjoyed it, yet would have prefered more action and less romance and character focus. I would recommend this series if you are looking to read a dystopian, but don’t want too much of the world building, defeating the government, or action scenes (basically all the good bits!), and would prefer mainly romance.

My reaction:

I still don’t really like Clary much, but I hated her in the first 3 books in the series. She was needy and annoying to the other Shadowhunters, and was just desperate to be accepted. However, in the last 3 books in the series, she was much more independent. Finally she didn’t need Luke or Jace to be constantly looking out for her, and I cared about her much more.

2. Alec Lightwood from The Mortal Instruments

Alec was so moody at the start of the book, but he was just confused and jealous. Over the course of the book I definitely grew to love him (to the extent of him being one of my favourite characters ever) because he’s now so confident and sassy. He developed into his true personality which we didn’t see in CoB and CoA.

3. Bree from The Manifesto on How to be Interesting

The whole point of this book was character development, so if Bree didn’t change the book would just be pointless! She was really insecure at the start, yet at the end she was really confident and had great self-esteem. She learnt so much through the book which I think was really important for the readers to learn too.

4. Britt Pheiffer from Black Ice

Although I hated Britt throughout the entire book, she changed well through the story. The whole point of her trip (so the book) was to win back her ex-boyfriend, yet she came back completely over him and instead being more about herself. For the majority of the book, she was pretty useless and couldn’t do much, but was much more independent at the end.

5. Juliette Ferrars from the Shatter Me Series

Juliette was the person who gave me inspiration to write this post. She started off the series as a really irritating character because just cried every page. In Ignite Me, she made great decisions for herself (most of the time!), and finally stopped crossing out every word! She was much more independent, compared to Shatter Me, where she had to have Adam *cringes* do everything for her.

Do you agree with any of my choices? Or think I've missed someone out? Let me know below, I'd love to hear what you think!

So, I was thinking about post ideas for this blog, and I thought why not do a meme? Top 5 Friday is a really good one for me because I have much more time to post on Friday, so check back every Friday for another Top Five Friday meme!

This week I'm going to do Book Covers: I seriously want to own all of these books, and their contents (which hopefully lives up to the stunning covers!). Also please note: There are many other covers I love just as much, and it was really hard to decide. And these are in no particular order because come on... that is just an impossible task!


The Selection Series by Kiera Cass

I don't actually own these, but my sister does, and they look so amazing on her shelf! I haven't read them yet (but desperately want to), but she has, and she was said they're amazing, so I'm really looking forward to reading them.


The Infernal Devices by Cassandra Clare

It was pretty much impossible to choose between this series, and The Mortal Instruments (because they're the same style and both really stunning) but I chose this because I enjoyed them a tiny bit more than TMI. It's one of my all-time favourite series, and the covers are amazing too, so I just love everything about this trilogy!

Shatter Me series by Tahereh Mafi

I have only read Shatter Me (read my review here) out of this series so far, but I really plan to buy the rest soon! The covers are just so amazing, I love all the detail too. Shatter Me was a really good book, so I am absolutely desperate to buy the rest.







Firebird Trilogy (last cover not released yet) by Claudia Gray

I need these right now! The covers are SO beautiful, and the story seems great too. I really need these so much - my birthday is coming up, so hopefully I will get some money to buy these with!



I'll Give You the Sun and The Sky is Everywhere by Jandy Nelson

Okay, so I kind-of cheated with this once, but how am I meant to choose between these two? Also, these covers look like a series together so... that's OK, right? I have them both, but my cover of TSiE is different - still pretty, but not as stunning as the one in the picture. I have read I'll Give you the Sun (review here), and it has been my only 5 star review on this blog so far. I loved it so much, and I expect to love The Sky is Everywhere just as much - Jandy Nelson's style of writing is so good.

So that's it for this week's Top Five Friday! What did you think of it? Are you looking forward to my next meme? Let me know in the comments!

Shatter Me
By Tahereh Mafi

Source: Physical
Page count: 338
Genres: Young Adult, Dystopian, Romance, Post Apocalyptic, Science Fiction, 

Goodreads Synopsis:

I have a curse
I have a gift

I am a monster
I'm more than human

My touch is lethal
My touch is power

I am their weapon
I will fight back

Juliette hasn't touched anyone in exactly 264 days.

The last time she did, it was an accident, but The Reestablishment locked her up for murder. No one knows why Juliette’s touch is fatal. As long as she doesn’t hurt anyone else, no one really cares. The world is too busy crumbling to pieces to pay attention to a 17-year-old girl. Diseases are destroying the population, food is hard to find, birds don’t fly anymore, and the clouds are the wrong color.

The Reestablishment said their way was the only way to fix things, so they threw Juliette in a cell. Now so many people are dead that the survivors are whispering war – and The Reestablishment has changed its mind. Maybe Juliette is more than a tortured soul stuffed into a poisonous body. Maybe she’s exactly what they need right now.

Juliette has to make a choice: Be a weapon. Or be a warrior.

My Review:

I'm going to start off this by saying: loads of people hate this book. How? I thought this was amazing - I was really excited throughout the whole book, and wanted to just keep on reading. The description was great - it was different to other books I've read as it had loads of similes and metaphors, most of them were really original (but some of them really didn't make sense!). The writing was really clever - it made me feel empathy for Juliette by page 23 - this is very unusual for me, as normally I never feel like that at such an early stage in a book!

One thing I really didn't like in this book was the romance. It was too intense - they had only known eachother for a few weeks, and they already had a really passionate relationship. In my eyes, it was too early for them as a couple. Too much insta-love! I also didn't like how the dystopia seemed to be based around the romance, not the other way round. For me, I would have liked more action and less romance.

Another thing I didn't like was the fact that they were on the run, yet wasting valuable time kissing! It was a really dangerous situation - they were running for their lives! I know that if I was Juliette I would be focusing on how to stay alive, not using time to spend gazing into my boyfriend's eyes. 

I think the book needed more dystopian aspects, and for it to be less centered around the romance. There wasn't much world building because it was so character-based - I would have prefered to know more about The Reestablishment so we can hate them more. I would have also liked to know more about Juliette before she got locked up - this way we would care more about her, and I the way it is so character-centered would become more effective.

I also hated the British stereotype in the book! I am British, and Mafi made her only British character say things like "blimey" and "bloody confusing". No-one says things like that! British people don't speak much differently to Americans, and aren't at all posh. This annoyed me so much!

From my review, it sounds like I hated this book, but I really didn't. It had me captivated from the beginning and I was hooked until the very end. I need the next book now!

Rating: 

I would recommend it if you enjoyed Divergent.

Please note: This month I am extremely busy: I am loaded with exams and homework *cries*, and I am doing NanoWrimo too, so I won't be able to post as much.