Book Review: Shatter Me by Tahereh Mafi

Reviewer: Lindsey Pogue

Title: Shatter Me

Series: Shatter Me (book 1)
Author: Tahereh Mafi

Indie or Traditional: Traditional (HarperCollins)

Genre(s): YA, Romance, Science Fiction, Dystopian, Post-apocaplyptic

Main Character(s): Juliette Ferrars, Adam Kent

Rating: 5/5 stars

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Team Lindsey adores Tahereh Mafi and her Shatter Me series. Although Shatter Me is the first book in the series and has been out since 2011, I'm only just now about ready to jump into Unravel Me and wanted to do a quick recap.

!If you haven’t read Shatter Me, POSSIBLE SPOILER ALERT AHEAD!

Summary:  Juliette doesn’t know her own strength that she’s cursed. That is, until she tried to help someone inadvertently killed a small child, was labeled dangerous and locked away in a cell…by the Reestablishment…from the crumbling, chaotic world in which she lives.  While 17-year-old Juliette isn’t exactly cursed, no one knows why her touch is fatal or what to do with her…that is until someone gets a bright idea and deems her useful.

Juliette thinks she’s been forgotten about until Warner, the son of the leader of the Reestablishment, begins to show interest in becomes obsessed with her, trying to convert Juliette into one of his weapons to help take over what remains of the decaying world that they live in.

Adam, a childhood acquaintance and a soldier in the Reestablishment, is the only one willing to help her, who sees Juliette as good, who loves her, and who helps her escape Warner’s evil grasp.

There's a little romance, a little action, but a lot of heart, which I think is what really grabbed my attention.

What I like about it:

·      Mafi is a fresh author with a unique voice. I love the strikethrough idea because, let’s be honest, we think this way so why not write this way? It seems ingenious to me, especially because the censorship and uncertainty is written as it is inside Juliette’s head. Sometimes Juliette makes no sense, but that’s because her mind is reeling and she’s trying to comprehend her life…the world…love…fear. She’s a naive girl in an uncertain and unpredictable and dangerous world so it makes sense her inner-most thoughts would be wishful, confused, self-deprecating, and wanting.

·      The prose. While I don’t necessary write with so much fluff, with as many adjectives or abstract thoughts, that doesn’t mean it’s not refreshing to read once in a while. I generally like simple and to the point, but I can definitely appreciate the time and creativity an author can put into description and elaboration.

For instance…

I always wonder about raindrops.
I wonder about how they’re always falling down, tripping over their own feet, breaking their legs and forgetting their parachutes as they tumble right out of the sky toward an uncertain end. It’s like someone is emptying their pockets over the earth and doesn’t seem to care where the contents fall, doesn’t seem to care that the raindrops burst when they hit the ground, that they shatter when they fall to the floor, that people curse the days the drops dare to tap on their doors.

The prose are really quite beautiful. I could never write something so clever, so thought provoking. I think Mafi doesn’t it nicely and while some people don’t like it, I think others absolutely love it.  There were many times during this book that I literally stopped reading and thought “how does she do it?”

·      The characters. Warner was creepy. Adam was lovable. Juliette was endearing. That’s what a good story needs and I think the author did a good job of making the reader want what she did…to either love OR hate the characters. Even Kenji was entertaining and kept the suspense up because we don’t really know if he’s sincere until they arrive at one of the Resistance bases.

• THE NEW COVER IS BEAUTIFUL!

Some of the issues that I had…

·      Because the story takes place so much in the whirling mind of the heroine, I did find myself sometimes wishing the action would pick up, the romance would pick up, something that would help at a little more life to the story along with all the inner turmoil.

·      Sometimes the prose did seem a bit much and I could have done with them more sparsely laced throughout the story, but again, it’s the author’s writing style and I can’t do that, so I appreciate it (even if it is sort of distracting at times).

Overall, I’m a huge fan of this book. I am anxious to get started on Unravel Me, but I wanted to get my thoughts down on paper before immersing myself in the second installment of Shatter Me. I have a feeling I’m going to be wishing I’d waited for book three, but I can’t help it…I’m reading it anyway.