ISBN: 9780062085481
Released: November 15, 2011
Publisher: HarperCollins
Author's Website: Tahereh Mafi
Buy it: Amazon
Genre: YA, Fantasy
Series: Shatter Me #1
Book Order:
1. Shatter Me
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.
4 out of 5 Stars
Shatter Me is difficult to rate for me because one minute I’m remembering it as this amazing thing with sexytimes and interesting characters, and the next I’m remembering it as page upon page of metaphors and similes and hormones.
Page one--I was loving Mafi’s writing style, but by the end of the first chapter I was already sick of metaphors. Don’t get me wrong, I definitely feel like metaphors have a strong place in writing, and can transform the most asinine sentence into something worth re-reading, but there are limits. It got to the point that it felt like that’s all I was reading—metaphors and similes. Luckily, this thins out quite a bit as the story progresses.
I was a fan of the characters. I loved Juliette’s voice and her growth throughout the story. I liked seeing her open up and begin trusting people who seemed trustworthy. Adam is absolutely swoonworthy (honestly, she had me at ‘tattoos’). This is where I smile and remember this as the amazing thing with sexytimes. Ha.
That’s actually my biggest issue with Shatter Me, AND the thing I enjoyed most (how does that work?). The main thing I remember it for is the heated moments between Juliette and Adam, and while that’s all well and good and much appreciated, this is a dystopian, and I expected a little more world-building, a little less lip-locking.
I do think there are a lot of things that need to be explained in regards to the plot, and I hope the sequel accomplishes this. While I wasn't quite as blown away by Shatter Me as I thought I would be, I will be anticipating the sequel.
--Amanda
Thanks for the honest review. I've been on the fence with this one, and haven't been able to figure out why. And while the premise sounds interesting, I definitely think that many metaphors might make my head spin!
ReplyDeleteSmiles!
Lori