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
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.
