Shatter Me
- Tahereh Mafi
- Albany, WA
- November 17, 2022
GOODREADS BOOK BLURB:
Juliette hasn’t touched anyone in exactly 264 days.
The last time she did, it was an accident, but The Reestablishment locked her up for murder. No one knows why Juliette’s touch is fatal. As long as she doesn’t hurt anyone else, no one really cares. The world is too busy crumbling to pieces to pay attention to a 17-year-old girl. Diseases are destroying the population, food is hard to find, birds don’t fly anymore, and the clouds are the wrong color.
The Reestablishment said their way was the only way to fix things, so they threw Juliette in a cell. Now so many people are dead that the survivors are whispering war – and The Reestablishment has changed its mind. Maybe Juliette is more than a tortured soul stuffed into a poisonous body. Maybe she’s exactly what they need right now.
Juliette has to make a choice: Be a weapon. Or be a warrior.
The last time she did, it was an accident, but The Reestablishment locked her up for murder. No one knows why Juliette’s touch is fatal. As long as she doesn’t hurt anyone else, no one really cares. The world is too busy crumbling to pieces to pay attention to a 17-year-old girl. Diseases are destroying the population, food is hard to find, birds don’t fly anymore, and the clouds are the wrong color.
The Reestablishment said their way was the only way to fix things, so they threw Juliette in a cell. Now so many people are dead that the survivors are whispering war – and The Reestablishment has changed its mind. Maybe Juliette is more than a tortured soul stuffed into a poisonous body. Maybe she’s exactly what they need right now.
Juliette has to make a choice: Be a weapon. Or be a warrior.
SERIES / GENRES:
FIRST WORDS:
I’ve been locked up for 264 days.
I have nothing but a small notebook and a broken pen and the numbers in my head to keep me company. 1 window. 4 walls. 144 square feet of space. 26 letters in an alphabet I haven’t spoken in 264 days of isolation.
6,336 hours since I’ve touched another human being.
I have nothing but a small notebook and a broken pen and the numbers in my head to keep me company. 1 window. 4 walls. 144 square feet of space. 26 letters in an alphabet I haven’t spoken in 264 days of isolation.
6,336 hours since I’ve touched another human being.
MY REVIEW:
enjoyable/easy to read:
☆☆☆☆☆ 3.5/5
I’m not entirely sold on this series yet. I think it might be heading somewhere interesting, but so far, it is awfully juvenile.
The characters are very one-dimensional, but I’m hoping that, at this point, it’s intentional. I think the lines are supposed to be drawn in the sand – Warner bad, Juliette good. But Warner is a too typical psychotic authoritarian villain with daddy issues while Juliette is too perfectly, innocently good. I like that after years of abuse, social isolation, and over 200 days of actual isolation, she has cracked a little; it wouldn’t make sense for her to come into her power yet, so I am looking forward to this transition. But for someone who has been treated so horribly for so long in a world that is literally crumbling, she’s much too innocent to be totally believable.
The characters are very one-dimensional, but I’m hoping that, at this point, it’s intentional. I think the lines are supposed to be drawn in the sand – Warner bad, Juliette good. But Warner is a too typical psychotic authoritarian villain with daddy issues while Juliette is too perfectly, innocently good. I like that after years of abuse, social isolation, and over 200 days of actual isolation, she has cracked a little; it wouldn’t make sense for her to come into her power yet, so I am looking forward to this transition. But for someone who has been treated so horribly for so long in a world that is literally crumbling, she’s much too innocent to be totally believable.
By the end, this is feeling a little superhero-y with a real X-men vibe. I mean, there’s even a leader with telekinetic powers? That’s more than a coincidence.
I hope the rest of the series branches out a little. I’m over the crossed-out words and sentences, and hopefully, as Juliette becomes more social, we can leave this behind. And the romance is way too intense. I can’t call it instalove because they apparently spent years in love with each other without ever speaking – because when you know, you know, right? Who needs words? But it is cookie-cutter and boring. I think there’s potential here for this to get very interesting as long as Mafi doesn’t follow the expected path you would assume after reading Shatter Me. Fingers crossed…
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