Series: Shatter Me Trilogy - book 1
Author: Tahereh Mafi
Rating: 3.5
Genre: Young Adult, Dystopia, Fantasy/ Sci-fi
Number of Pages: 338
Publication Date:November 2011
Publisher: Harper Collins
Summary (from the back of book): 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.
The first thing I want to mention is the writing style of this book. You are either going to love it or hate it. Personally I found all the metaphors and crossed out to words, especially in the beginning of the book, difficult to get the flow of. It was a bit too stop and start for me. However, I do understand that this style of writing is essential for the book. Through writing from Juliette's perspective this style of writing provides an incredibly detailed line of sight in Juliette's mind. And the lack of stability that she is experiencing.
The second half of this book is a lot better than the first half, in fact the first quarter of the book almost made me put it down. For the first part of this book I was a little confused as to what was going on, especially the role of Adam and Warner. While I understand that Juliette is confused and therefore so is the reader, at times this caused the story to lack enough insight to hold my attention.
This next part will be a bit spoilery, so if you haven't read the book yet, divert your gaze:
The relationship between Adam and Juliette and even Warner's feelings for Juliette, leave me mildly annoyed and unhappy. To me, I found them both to be quite forced. The relationship between Adam and Juliette happens too fast, it almost insta-love. And I hate insta-love. While later in the book it is established that Juliette and Adam not only know each other from the past, but have always loved each other, this was not developed enough for me, and not developed early enough, for me to loose this feeling of insta-love. At first I questioned whether I had missed a page or two.
The potential for a relationship between Warner and Juliette was also something I struggled with. It is only now as I read the novella following the first book where I have gotten any idea of where a potential relationship between the two stems from. It is only near the end of Shatter Me that it is really hinted at that Warner has been following Juliette's live with interest, border lining obsession. And it is only in the novella that it actually becomes clear what Warner is thinking.
Once again I'm not sure if this is because Juliette thinks this way, so as a reader, so do I (after all, a larger proportion of this book is her internal monologue)...or if the relationships she has with these two boys is just something I find lacking. I will be persevering with this series as I have heard many people claim that the rest of the series is a lot better than the first book. I also feel that Shatter Me is a book you almost need to re-read once you get a better understanding of the series to fully appreciate it. The premise of this book really interests me as well and I am interested it seeing how the Reestablishment side of this series plays out.
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