Before She Ignites by Jodi Meadows – a Review

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Description:
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.

Review:

Before She Ignites by Jodi Meadows is the first book in her new YA fantasy Fallen Isles Trilogy. Mira Minkoba, our young heroine, is the face of the Mira Treaty; someone whom the people believe in and trust, even if she is only a teenager. In reality, Mira doesn’t really understand the political aspects of her role and is only a chosen spokesperson that is given a script to read to the public. Mira spends most of her time with her guard and friend, as they help train and take care of Dragons, who are protected, as part of the treaty. Mira adores her two little dragons, LaLa and Crystal.

Mira accidently learns some truths about the Dragons that seem to be disappearing, and is thrown into prison (Pit), which is the lowest depth of humanity. Mira has always had anxiety, and when she sits in her prison, trying to understand what is happening, she begins to hyper ventilate when the lights go out. Mira must find her courage, and learn to make friends with her co-prisoners to find a way out. After a month in the worst conditions, Mira is unexpectedly released to one of the Fallen Isles leaders, and taken to another area where they want to her talk to the people. Mira learns more, seeing some of the dragons killed and used for illegal trafficking; she surprises the leaders and warns the people that they are being lied to. Mira will with the help of her guard and friend, manage to escape, but she is determined to help save the inmate friends who she met and helped her.

What follows is an exciting and interesting adventure, where Mira will rise up and learn that she has powers she never knew existed, and with her friends they will fight an all out battle for survival to escape the prison. I really liked Mira, as she was a simple girl, who followed what was expected of her; but had her own flaws (anxiety), and insecurity. It was nice to see her grow in maturity and strength during the course of their adventure. The secondary characters, her guard, friend, inmates, including the villains were well written. As in most first books of fantasy, there are some slow parts, which is necessary to allow us to learn the new world and meet the main characters. Early on, I was not enamored with the flipping around between many time elements, which did cause some confusion. I did like the Dragon storyline, but would have liked a lot more.

Meadows has done an excellent job of creating this world, and I look forward to what she has in store for us in the future books. The ending, which did have a few twists, is not truly a cliffhanger, but it is left open for continuation of the story. Before She Ignites was a good start to this series, with an excellent leading character, good secondary characters, exciting, bad villains and dragons. If you enjoy fantasy in a different world, I suggest you give Before She Ignites a try.

Reviewed by Barb

Copy provided by Publisher

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