Before She Ignites by Jodi Meadows Review
Hello Again!
Welcome back to another titillating book review. This time, I chose to review Before She Ignites, a book that was included in the OwlCrate for the month of September. I've had this sitting in my TBR (to be read) pile for a little while now and am ready to share my reading experience with you. Enjoy!
Synopsis
"Mira has always been a symbol of hope for the Fallen Isles, perfect and beautiful—or at least that’s how she’s forced to appear. But when she uncovers a dangerous secret, Mira is betrayed by those closest to her and sentenced to the deadliest prison in the Fallen Isles.Except Mira is over being a pawn. Fighting to survive against outer threats and inner demons of mental illness, Mira must find her inner fire and the scorching truth about her own endangered magic—before her very world collapses.And that’s all before she ignites."
-Barnes and Noble.com
Review
I want to start out by saying that I think this book definitely had more negatives than positives which was really disappointing. From the synopsis I read and the positive feedback I saw, I was pretty excited to read this book. I haven't read a book about dragons in a while and this book seemed like it was going to build an interesting world. However, I was definitely let down, and I'll explain why below. But lets start out with a positive.
One of the things that I enjoyed from the novel were the many varied species of dragons. The author goes into detail about quite a few of the dragons and there are still quite a few more species that I'm sure we will learn more about in the coming books. One of the other things I enjoyed was the way the character thinks. There is alot of internal dialogue in this novel and it was interesting to see so much of it where as more novels don't have as much.
One of the things that irritates me and is to the detriment of the main characters development is the weakness of the main character, Mira. Although the author tries to shift the character's overall sense of strength throughout the book from a weaker one to a stronger one, the way she poses the character at the beginning of the novel tainted the way I viewed her for the entire novel. I cannot say that I personally would or wouldn't act the same way if I was in this character's position, however, it really made it hard for me to believe that this was a character upon whom a series could be built upon.
Another negative from this novel (and one that I think is more a weakness of the writer) is the world building she attempted to do in this novel. This novel could be considered high fantasy (a unique world is build for the story) and because of that, the author endeavored to create her world during the novel. However, she tried to create the world too fast. I was constantly being given pieces of information about the world and the characters and those pieces of information were never explained or brought up again and were very confusing and hard to follow. In high fantasy, you have to give the world time to develop. This is something that Sarah J. Maas does very well, usually focusing on one smaller area for one novel before giving you more information to focus on. It was too rushed and it made the novel feel like a hot mess.
Conclusion
Overall, although I did not enjoy this novel as much as I wanted to, I will probably read the next one. I would like to see if this author improves the story and the character at all.
Length: Felt like it went on forever but I think that's because of my confusion.
Story Development: Confusing and a little hard to follow.
Romance: Another case of a possible romance beginning to bloom, but not coming to fruition.
Protagonist Strength: Below Average
Re-readable? Yes, but only to clarify before the next book. I wouldn't re-read for pleasure.
I give this book 2.5 out of 5 stars
