Like The Bone Season, I am incredibly late to read the Shatter Me series. I had to read it for the monthly book club that I go to at my local Waterstones and I was so glad that Shatter Me was picked, because it just meant that I had an excuse to FINALLY get around to it.

It’s very… meh?

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 colour.

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.

To start this review off, I’m just going to say… WHAT?!! WHY DO PEOPLE SHIP JULIETTE AND WARNER TOGETHER? He is probably the most sadistic character that I’ve ever read about in YA. He’s just completely insane. All the reviews that I’ve read of the other books in the series say that Juliette and Warner are great together and that they ship them so hard and I’m just sat here like… ‘what?’ He is so controlling and manipulative and forces her to kiss him and act like his plaything and to do stuff that is just horrifying *see baby scene*… He MUST go through some massive character development for people to fall in love with him… He MUST. Because right now, I really can’t see it. I also can’t see why Juliette would even START to be attracted to this guy. Yeah, he might be attractive but that doesn’t mean that he’s a nice person! It’s just advocating people being in abusive relationships and I can’t handle that. I really really hope that this whole character development thing that he undertakes is MASSIVE because it needs to be for me to start liking him.

 

“I spent my life folded between the pages of books.
In the absence of human relationships I formed bonds with paper characters. I lived love and loss through stories threaded in history; I experienced adolescence by association. My world is one interwoven web of words, stringing limb to limb, bone to sinew, thoughts and images all together. I am a being comprised of letters, a character created by sentences, a figment of imagination formed through fiction.”

― Tahereh Mafi, Shatter Me

 

I do think though that I would have liked this book a lot more if I had read it when I was younger and not when I was 22. It’s definitely something my younger self would have enjoyed a lot more, maybe when I was about 17?

When it came to the writing style, it was very disjointing at first, with Juliette crossing out what she was saying and then correcting herself, but as the book continued, I realised how unique the writing style actually was. I think the reason behind it was for Mafi to show the reader the development that Juliette went through. At first, she was insecure about herself, but as she got stronger, so did her voice, and I think that it’s such a clever way to write a novel.

Speaking of Paige, she’s basically just Rogue from X-Men. Actually… This whole novel is basically X-Men where there is a safe space for people with powers, and then they wear spandex suits and… yeah… you get the idea.

 

“The moon is a loyal companion.
It never leaves. It’s always there, watching, steadfast, knowing us in our light and dark moments, changing forever just as we do. Every day it’s a different version of itself. Sometimes weak and wan, sometimes strong and full of light. The moon understands what it means to be human.
Uncertain. Alone. Cratered by imperfections.”

― Tahereh Mafi, Shatter Me

 

And I think (?) that she may be the only girl/woman in this book? Please correct me if I’m wrong.

The story itself was pretty captivating. There were a lot of twists and turns that I wasn’t expecting and I did like the romance between Juliette and Adam, even though it was cliché as hell, but then I have to remind myself that it was written in 2011 when the whole Twilight thing was going on and that’s what people like me loved then (and still do.)

I also really liked the secondary characters in the book like Kenji, and I can’t wait to see more of them in the other novels.

Overall, this book was ok… It didn’t WOW me completely as it just didn’t feel like an original storyline. I know that nothing is ever completely original, but this seemed to rip off X-Men too much (?) But I AM intrigued to see where this storyline goes, and yes, I am intrigued to read about Warner’s character development. I guess we will just have to wait and see…

 

 

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