Shatter Me by Tahereh Mafi
Summary: 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.
My Thoughts: I’ve been hearing a lot about Shatter Me, and all the hype was right! I finished this one in a day, and while I new it was going to be interesting because it’s the best mix of genres (dystopian, science fiction, young adult fiction, a bit of romance), I definitely didn’t expect the beautiful, almost poetic writing style of debut author Mafi.
I was immediately hooked from the first page. We’re introduced to Juliette as a narrator, and we’re wondering, is this character mentally unstable? Insane? Hallucinatory?Which are also questions that our protagonist keeps asking herself, especially when her life in solitary confinement is disrupted with the addition of a new cellmate–a boy who reminds her of before, before her entrapment and the end of the world.
The narration begins as a stream of consciousness that is alternately tightly controlled, utterly panicked, and all sorts of other emotions that the reader feels right along with Juliette. The action is non-stop, I was never bored, and at every point there was some kind of twist or revelation that I didn’t see coming that only contributed more to the plot and overall atmosphere.
The dialogue was perfect, it was snappy when necessary, and drawn-out when needed, everything pitch-perfect and right. I’m just going to keep coming back to Mafi’s talented writing abilities.
The only issue I had is that I wasn’t complete won over or convinced by our main bad guy. Maybe in the sequel, but he just didn’t tick with me or scare me enough for me to believe in the villainy.
It’s described as Hunger Games meets X-Men, and I think that’s a very apt description. I will definitely be looking for the sequel.
Author Website: http://www.taherehmafi.com/
Second Opinion: Angieville
How did I get this book? Ebook on my phone!
Genres: Science fiction, young adult fiction, dystopian, post-apocalyptic, romance
