Before She Ignites (Fallen Isles, #1)

by Jodi Meadows

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 Mira Treaty named after her, a peace agreement which united the seven islands against their enemies on the mainland.

But Mira has never felt as perfect as everyone says. 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.

Jodi Meadows’s new Fallen Isles series blazes with endangered magic, slow-burn romance, and inner fire.

• ISBN10: 0062469401
• ISBN13: 9780062469403
• Publish Date: 16 November 2017 (first published 12 September 2017)
• Publish Status: Active
• Out of Print: 15 October 2021
• Publish Country: US
• Imprint: Katherine Tegen Books
• Format: Hardcover
• Pages: 496
• Language: English

Reviews

[ladygrey]

So this is the book where nothing really happens. I mean, I’d A LOT of book for so little plot. Plenty of character building for Mira, less so for everyone else so there’s not a lot of depth to it either. Some world building, even to drape the thin story over. But mostly this is a book of internal monologue, the emotions and reactions of an intentionally passive character and so excruciating detail of panic attacks. And then the end.

I feel like if you condensed this book to just actual plot and story progress you’d have barely a hundred pages. If this trend continues then the whole trilogy probably could have been a single book, but I’m not sure on that part yet.

The one advantage is that Meadows is a good writer so she can get away with a giant book that’s all panic attacks and internal reactions. She keeps the emotions and thoughts rolling well enough that you don’t get bogged down by it or feel bored even if NOTHING is happening (for like the entire first half—and then a lot of pages after that too). And all with minimal repetition. Why do YA books insist on explaining “the last time this happened...” when I know what happened last time, it was less than four chapters ago? I was there! I read it! Please get on with the story.

In fact, it’s almost surprisingly well written considering it’s moderately engaging even with such a dearth of story. It’d just be a lot more interesting if it was tighter and there was less what Mira’s thinking and more actual story.

[emruth13]

I love this book a lot. I love the dragons. I love the story. I just love everything about it.

[alisoninbookland]

The abuse is pretty rough to read but once you get past it, the book really picks up.

[leahrosereads]

This was over all a pretty mediocre read. Which sucks because I wanted an epic fantasy filled with fantastic adventures and intrigue and wonderfully developed characters.

But I got none of that.

Mira (the MC) is a chosen one who everyone follows and trusts to guide them through a treaty bearing her name. She's a POC which rocks with anxiety and compulsion difficulties and some major vanity nonsense. She has a lot of political responsibilities and few friends. It seems to be a pretty lonely existence.

And had she been a more developed character, maybe I'd feel more empathetic towards her. But she wasn't, so I wasn't.

The secondary characters were pretty center pieces. They had nice qualities but were pretty much forgettable. Which is a bummer. I don't want to forget about characters. I want them to be memorable and interesting and important to the story.

The world building was also just OK. I wish there was more so I could become more invested in everything going on with Mira and the islands, but again, it was lacking, and I felt my interest waning while reading this.

The writing was decent, but with how underdeveloped everything felt in this, I don't have a desire to continue with the series. Maybe if the hype for the second book is high enough, I'll give it another try.

Maybe.

[tweetybugshouse]

Strength through silence. When to listen. When to speak. And how to measure those were the lessons of Idris. Before she Ignites is about a girl name Mira who struggles with this image that she is perfect. She in no way is she struggles with crippling anxiety, lack of being allowed to make her own decisions and obsessive love of dragons. Due to her love of dragons she discovers an awful secret and takes her knowledge to those she believe will do the right thing.

They don’t and she thrown in prison where she does her best to hid her identity as being the great Hope bearer. The author does a great job of sticking to the fact that this character has anxiety and has an ocd for counting things. I not really read a book that has a character portrayed in a fantasy like this. It really made Mira a unique character to follow as she strives to do the right thing.

Mira is given at least one chance to try and change her circumstances by being a puppet and saying exactly what the government wants instead she decides she no longer wants to be just a puppet and the separation of races by the government can’t be allowed to happen.

In the final pages of the story not only do we see Mira become a stronger but she ends up with powers can anyone say this book is not epic. What not to love dragons, a strong mental health character who ends up with magic powers and revolt against an evil government. Before she Ignites has lots of layers and yes the book is slow to get to the action but it that building up and learning about Mira and her rag tag group of would be warriors that makes this story so enjoyable. I ready for As she Ascends coming September 11, 2018.

You had me at "illegal dragon trafficking".

[Ashley]

Actual rating: 2.5 stars

Well shit. I'm sad I didn't love this. :(

Things I didn't like:

1) The format. It kept flip flopping between different time periods and I didn't like it. I'm not opposed to that overall, but I didn't feel like it really worked here. I think the book could have been more powerful and interesting if it was linear. Instead it was like:

-- Now
-- 10 years ago
-- Now
-- 10 days ago
-- Now
-- 7 years ago

It was all over the damn place.

2) A lot of it was just boring. Like 95% of the "now" chapters took place in a pitch black prison. There's only so much interesting stuff that can happen in those circumstances.

3) Most of the characters were pretty bland, especially the main ones. The MC wasn't bland, but everyone close to her was. I barely got to know her two BFFs, and her main prison friend is literally known for being silent. The one character I did really like is kind of an awesome badass but she was a minor character in the grand scheme of things.

4) The world building. I feel like there was a lot to this world, but it was really poorly and shallowly explained. There's clearly tons of history, culture, and politics that are REALLY important to the plot, but it was never explained very well so it was hard to get invested or truly understand and appreciate what was going on. It was hard to care about it when I knew so little about it.

5) The dragons didn't excite me as much as I thought they would. Although the "dragon trafficking" is the focus of the story, the dragons seemed to play a surprisingly small role. Maybe that was because the MC spent the whole book in prison where there were no dragons at all. I think there was just so much more that I hoped for.