Before She Ignites by Jodi Meadows Series: The Fallen Isles #1
Published by Katherine Tegen (9.12.2017)
Genres: High Fantasy, Young Adult
Format: Hardcover, 485 pages
Source: I own it
Before
Mira Minkoba is the Hopebearer. Since the day she was born, she’s been told she’s special. Important. Perfect. She’s known across the Fallen Isles not just for her beauty, but for the peace treaty named after her, an agreement which united the seven islands against their enemies on the mainland.
But Mira never felt perfect. She counts compulsively. She struggles with crippling anxiety. And she’s far too interested in dragons for a girl of her station.
After
Then Mira discovers an explosive secret that challenges everything she and the treaty stand for. Betrayed by the very people she spent her life serving, Mira is sentenced to the Pit—the deadliest prison in the Fallen Isles. There, a cruel guard would do anything to discover the secret she would die to protect.
No longer beholden to those who betrayed her, Mira must learn to survive on her own and unearth the dark truths about the Fallen Isles—and herself—before her very world begins to collapse.
My thoughts
Wow, talk about disappointing. Honestly, this is probably one of the most disappointing books I’ve ever read in all my life. I love dragon stories. And the fastest way to ruin a dragon story is, gee, to NOT PUT ANY DRAGONS IN IT.
Where were the dragons I was promised? WHERE?! (And I quote, from Jodi herself: “Lots and lots of dragons.” UTTER. BULLSHIT.) I mean, it had some dragons. But most of the dragon stuff was just talking about dragons. And thinking about dragons. Not. Actual. Dragons. There were only two major dragon scenes in the whole book, and they were over in the span of a few pages. Everything else was only small snippets in Mira’s flashbacks. That’s right, folks. There were maybe 25 pages of dragons in a five hundred page book….about dragons. Let that sink in for a moment.
The majority of this book was spent in a prison cell. I’m talking like 75% of the book. (It may have been less, but it sure as hell felt like that much.) Which makes for the most boring shit you could ever read. Literally nothing happened for almost this whole story. And this book is damn near FIVE HUNDRED PAGES LONG. That’s at least 350 pages of absolute nothing. There was little to no plot. If you asked me what happened in this book, I couldn’t even tell you. Because nothing happened.
The world building was half assed at best. I didn’t understand the politics of the world because it was never actually explained? Just a mediocre info dump in the beginning and not much else.
The characters were cardboard cutouts. I didn’t care about anyone, least of all the main character. Which is sad, because Mira, the main character, has crippling anxiety. As someone who suffers from anxiety (although much milder), I thought this would make a connection. Nope. I didn’t connect to her at all. To be honest I didn’t even remember her name, I had to look it up. I don’t remember any of the other characters’ names, either. I don’t even remember what happened at the end of the book. Much of this book was spent trying not to bash my skull into a wall out of sheer boredom.
If you’re wanting to read this book because you love dragons, skip it. Don’t waste your time like I did. I don’t even know why I kept going – I usually DNF ruthlessly before 100 pages. I guess I kept holding out hope that Jodi’s promise of “lots and lots of dragons” would actually come to pass.
Spoiler alert: It didn’t.
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