January Wrap Up

In January I read four books. I read Ignite Me and Restore Me by Tahereh Mafi, Rebel to the Sands and Traitor to the Throne by Alwyn Hamilton.
You can find my opinion of Shatter Me and Destroy Me in my November Wrap Up and Unravel Me and Fracture Me in my December Wrap Up.

Ignite Me (Shatter Me - Book 3) ⭐⭐⭐⭐

Restore Me (Shatter Me - Book 4) ⭐⭐⭐⭐

Shatter Me by Tahereh Mafi

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.

Ignite Me, unlike Unravel Me, does not have as much action.
With each book I am always surprised by the evolution of Juliette, not only mentally but also physically. Kenji continues to be my favorite character.
I was a fan of Warner and in this book I no longer found the relationship between him and Juliette unhealthy.
What I liked the most was in how the author at the end of the book did not dramatize and prolonged the scene.
I liked that the author continued with the story because Ignite Me ends with an open end.
Restore Me have two points of views, from Juliette and Warner.
This book does not have much action in terms of fighting, but it's not as "slow" as Ignite Me because the characters had a lot of work due to what happens at the end of the third book.
As I mentioned in Ignite Me, Juliette has grown a lot since the first book, but at the same time she has doubts about herself which made her more "real".
Reading from Warner's perspective, it made me like him more. I loved seeing him with Kenji. I also enjoyed seeing him with Adam and liked to have seen Adam more.
In this book we meet new characters and was not expecting that scene with Nazeera and Juliette.
The revelations she made shocked me, and when I thought I was not going to be more shocked when I finished reading the book, I realized that, like John Snow, I know nothing.

"But finally, finally, I have learned to break free."

- Ignite Me

Rebel of the Sands ⭐⭐⭐

Traitor to the Throne ⭐⭐⭐

Rebel of the Sands by Alwyn Hamilton

Mortals rule the desert nation of Miraji, but mythical beasts still roam the wild and remote areas, and rumor has it that somewhere, djinn still perform their magic.  For humans, it’s an unforgiving place, especially if you’re poor, orphaned, or female.

Amani Al’Hiza is all three.  She’s a gifted gunslinger with perfect aim, but she can’t shoot her way out of Dustwalk, the back-country town where she’s destined to wind up wed or dead.

Then she meets Jin, a rakish foreigner, in a shooting contest, and sees him as the perfect escape route. But though she’s spent years dreaming of leaving Dustwalk, she never imagined she’d gallop away on mythical horse - or that it would take a foreign fugitive to show her the heart of the desert she thought she knew.

Rebel of the Sands is a Persian fantasy. The book is written in the first person and, unlike Shatter Me, I did not find it a bad choice of the author.
The book follows Amani's point of view and she is funny, adventurous, fearless, smart and also brave, and made me like her even though sometimes she did not make "morally right" decisions in the first part of the book, but then changes in the rest of the book.
As for Jin, I've enjoyed him since the beginning of the story. He, like Amani, is adventurous, fun, clever. I liked and ship the relationship between the two (#Jamani).
We know other characters, more to the end, and my favorite is Shazad. She is smart and a very good fighter and I would loved reading from her point of view.
One of the things I liked the most was the mythology. The author has created a world full of stories and very interesting to read.
One of the revelations made in the final part did not leave me very surprised because I was already waiting for this to be revealed.
I did not find the book slow because of the size of the book, which was clever on the part of the author. The author's writing is simple which made the reading be faster.

Traitor to the Throne is the second book in the Rebel of the Sands trilogy. Unlike the first book, I did not like that the book had only one point of view.
In this continuation we continue to have a funny, smart and fearless Amani. I still like Jin, but I wish he had him more in the story and still ship Jamani. Shazad continues to be my favorite character. The characters we know in this story the ones I liked the most were Sam and Rahim.
I'm still fascinated by mythology and its stories. One thing I found very interesting was the fact that names have power and throughout the book I thought I had seen it somewhere but I do not know where.
In this book we had more political intrigue and I also enjoyed very much.
With the synopsis of the book and throughout reading I was afraid of what the author was going to do about this character, but what I feared did not happen.
I want to read the third book, Hero at the Fall, but it will not be for now.

"Tell me that's how you want your story to go and we'll write it straight across the sand."

- Rebel of the Sands

What did you read in January?

You can find the books on Wook (Portugal only) and Book Depository!

Kisses,

-A