Ignite by Lily Paradis | Review

Two teens with troubled pasts. 

Do they chip away the ice around their hearts to let each other in?

Or do they stay shut off from love forever?

Ignite | Lily Paradis
Pages: 326
Genre(s): YA, Contemporary
Published: August 26, 2014 | Empire Books
Source: Review Copy - Author
Format: Ebook


Get It Here | Goodreads

                                       

After her father's  untimely demise in a mining accident and her mother’s abandonment, Lauren Lindsay is no stranger to loss. She’s used to living life for one person: herself. That is, until another family tragedy thrusts three children into her care and uproots her life in ways she could never imagine. 

Lauren's first instinct is to run, until she meets their striking, mysterious neighbor Dean Powell. Their immediate chemistry and his connection with her late father just might be enough to keep her in town long enough to uncover pieces of her past that she never had answers to. Dean’s shady past and her reluctance to trust him could cost her the life she's always been searching for, but will she run back to her old life? 

Or will she choose to stay and live the life her father always imagined for her?

Hey fANGIRL Readers, 

I remember back in August, everytime I was lurking on bloglovin, I would come across this pretty cover on someone's blog. I started seeing it just about every other day and soon began to ask the question, "Who wrote this book?" My question was answered just a few days later when I received a notification on twitter that Lily Paradis had followed me. I was soo excited, I mean, her book was everywhere, and everyone seemed to love it. So I followed her back, and after missing the opportunity to receive a review copy . . .  multiple times might I add, I decided to grab my lady balls, and email her. To my surprise, she was able to send over an ebook copy of Ignite, which ladies and gentlemen, brings us here. 

Now, I don't want anyone to look at the 3.5 rating and get the impression that I didn't enjoy the book, because too be honest, there were parts of the story that I absolutely loved. Unfortunately it wasn't enough for me to push it up to a 4 or 5, but as I stated, I still found certain moments to be a pleasure.

The story Ignite, follows our main protagonist Lauren Lindsey. She's a 21 year old college student, who returned to her hometown to run a quick errand to the DMV. There she runs into Dean Powell, our handsome Henry Cavill look alike, where they spark a very brief conversation. I say "brief" because she is interrupted by an urgent phone call that would change her life forever.

The story takes flight, and we witness the struggles Lauren encounters as she is thrown into the unknown. Her father passed away years ago in a mine accident, she doesn't have much of a relationship with her mother, well not at all actually, and her brother is in another state in college as well. She is literally alone. So when her father's wife Linda suddenly passes away, she is put in a difficult predicament:

The decision to become legal guardian of Linda's three children, 

Callie, Chase, and Emma. 

Crazy I know. 

Until she makes a final decision on whether she'll be leaving to return back to school, or stay and play "parent" with the kids, she moves into her father's home to care for them. Immediately the oldest, Callie gives her problems. She's the rebellious one, and it takes quite sometime for her to open up to Lauren. Next there's Chase, who happened to be my favorite. He was such a polite and respectful young boy for his age, and I liked how he made things easier for Lauren around the house. Finally we have the baby of the family Emma. From day one she absolutely adored Lauren, unlike her older sister. This aspect of the story is what I enjoyed the most. Reading the moments where she had to drive the younger kids to school, make them breakfast, even when her and Callie had their disputes. I loved the small family they created and the relationships that were built along the way. It was one of the main points of the story, and I will admit that it was executed well. 

As with family, friendship had a strong role within this story as well. Lauren quickly developed a "friendship" with Dean, who just so happen to be a friend of the family. We're also introduced to Lauren's bestfriend Kenzie, who I actually liked. She was such a fun character, with her bossy, but very genuine attitude. Now Dean on the other hand was a piece of work. Everything about him was so mysterious, which caused me to spend majority of the book trying to figure him out. For 85% of the story, the only things you know about Dean are:

1. He has a reputation which labeled him as a "Man-Whore".
2. He used to have a drug abuse problem.
3. He's 21 with a weird amount of mula. (His finances were a bit sketchy.) 

Even with his character being such a mystery, I still enjoyed their relationship. Well to a certain extent. He was so hot and cold in the beginning, and even when they both confessed their "liking" for one another, both characters still battled with past struggles of letting their guard down and people in. With the tough past that Dean endured, along with the struggles Lauren went through with her ex and losing her father, the relationship went through some rough patches. Which was quite realistic and genuine if you ask me.

Anywho, because Dean was so mysterious and completely shut off at times, it was so hard for me to connect with him as a character. Now that I'm thinking about it, I didn't connect with Lauren either. She was a super emotional character, which was kinda acceptable especially with her situation. But, when the crying happens in every chapter, in every scene, it starts to feel a bit excessive. As if crying wasn't enough, she also collapsed ALOT, often in Dean's arms, (go figure) and even bumped her head quite a few times. I wanted to bear hug her just to calm her down and tell her everything was going to be okay. But even with all the dramatics Lauren seemed to display, that wasn't my biggest problem with the story. 

After finishing Ignite, I struggled to come up with a rating. I was torn between 3 and 4 stars, and finally after thinking things through, I finally settled with a 3.5. Now I Loved the first half of the story. The pace was just right, and I felt like that the details of the story were unfolding as they should. But then the plot began to get a little choppy for me. The pace eventually picked up, causing things to happen a little too fast. But even that wasn't the straw that broke the camel's back.

What kept me from giving this book a 4 star rating was the absurdity of some of the situations. A scene would happen, and I'll be reading like " What in the world just happened?!! " I'm talking things that didn't just happen everyday, in the life of normal " teenagers ". Nothing about their lives were normal so I guess the situations were fitting, but some of these scenes were extremely over the top.

Even with the issues I had with Ignite, I'm glad I was still able to enjoy the story. I'm not really turned off by books pretty easily, but I have had to DNF a couple of titles in my day, but that certainly wasn't the case here. As I stated earlier in this "confession", family and friendships seemed to be the core of the story, and it was done so well. The characters were likable, I didn't completely love Dean or Lauren, but Tucker, yes! Tucker is Lauren's twin brother who's away at college, and god I wish he was able to make more of an appearance within the story. Maybe I'll see more of my new boo in the next book. My fingers are crossed!

I still have so many questions, and even though Ignite didn't end with a cliffhanger, there are topics that weren't cleared up, or even elaborated on in this book. However, I believe that this was intentional, and it actually has me excited to continue on to Arclight, the next book in the Ignite series. 

I hope you guys enjoyed my confession for Ignite by Lily Paradis. Even though I wasn't completely blown away, I still enjoyed it, and plan on continuing the series. So pick it up if you haven't already guys! Who knows, this may be your next favorite read. 

Until Next Time,