Release Date: Novermber 15, 2011
Publisher: Harper/Harper Collins
Source: Birthday Gift
Age Rec.: I would recommend this book to older young adults (15 and up maybe) because it has some mild language and some steamy kissing scenes.
Summary*:Within minutes of picking up Shatter Me and reading the first page, the realization that Tehereh Mafi's writing will not be like any other writing you have ever encountered will be lodged into your mind and will stay there until the last word of the last page. Simply put, the writing was beautiful, I wanted to marry the writing.
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. In this electrifying debut, Tahereh Mafi presents a world as riveting as The Hunger Games and a superhero story as thrilling as The X-Men. Full of pulse-pounding romance, intoxicating villainy, and high-stakes choices, Shatter Me is a fresh and original dystopian novel—with a paranormal twist—that will leave readers anxiously awaiting its sequel.
While Shatter Me's writing was hypnotic, it sometimes bordered on too much. Too much symbolism and too much metaphors.
Such as:
"perfect shade of cobalt, blue like a blossoming bruise, clear and deep and decided"I caught myself inwardly rolling my eyes and cringing at the overdone purple prose. It was not in every page I read but I just feel like the flowery writing could have been taken down a notch. Now, that is my opinion. I am sticking to it.
The writing I could live with, it was quite enjoyable most of the time. It was the Juliette I could have lived without. The Juliette, the main character who I am going to refer to as "the Juliette" from now on for no apparent reason, was not a character I was particularly fond of. While the Juliette stated off good at the beginning, eventually I didn't feel as connected to her as I would have liked, she came off as too weak and defenseless. While she had a power that she could not control, she could have used it to her defense. Don't get me wrong, sometimes she defended herself and did some things right. But most of the time she depended on Adam, her love interest, for support. He was the one who accepted her, she didn't seem so accepting of herself until he came up.
We come to another good point, her relationship with Adam, which was very quick paced and took up a lot of space in the plot in the story. They had liked each other for a long time, but not talked, and to go from that to love in such a sort amount of time, I just didn't buy into it. Also, bear with me, I am trying not to spoil anything for you guys as I go through this.
The story was original and exciting, but I wanted to read more about The Reestablishment, the origin of it, what exactly happened to the people and the resources. Less of the Juliette more of the evil government that is now ruling the earth (or the US?). I am guessing and hoping some of it will be explained in book #2, and I am excited to read more about it. I was sort of left with a lot of questions that I would like answered in the future.
The crossing out method in the story was very different and original, though it left me sort of confused.She is writing her experiences (most likely) and were the thing she was crossing out things she didn't want to say or needed to say? Needless to say the crossing out method didn't do much for me.
Weirder yet, was the relationship that the Juliette had with the antagonist of the story. Something about him drew her in, but I don't know exactly what. I mean he was a pretty attractive dude, but he was murderous. As evil as Warner is, the author did a very good job at developing him, and he was actually a character I became fond of. Which is rare, liking the villain, how character is portrayed. There was a couple of characters I became fond of, but the two main characters were not it.
In the end, the story did pick up a bit, and I loved the twist at the end of the Juliette's journey. I cannot complain much about the ending. So if you are losing hope for this book, don't give up so easily, I really liked the ending and I really wish I had liked Shatter Me as much as some my fellow blogger did. And if you really did love it and think I am crazy, then great for you! How I felt about the Juliette is not going to stop me from reading more of Tehereh Mafi's work, she is a brilliant writer, and I cannot wait to read more from her!
Cover Love?
I really liked the concept of the cover because after you read Shatter Me it makes complete sense why they put the girl in a fancy dress. Love the shiny-ness to it. The facial expression of the girl is sort of weird.
Butterflies?
Great review; love your honesty and you know, sometimes a book just doesn't rock your boat and...that's that. It is what it is. :)
ReplyDeleteA lot of people said the lyrical writing was just a little too much.
ReplyDelete