Review: Shatter Me by Tahereh Mafi

Title: Shatter Me

Author: Tahereh Mafi site

Format: ARC

Release Date: 11/15/2011

Publisher: Harper Teen

Source: Pre-publication tour

“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.” 

-Goodreads

How it starts:

Juliette is a cell. She has nothing but a small notebook and a broken pen. Alone except for 1 window, 4 walls, 16 square feet of space, and the far off screams of the asylums other inhabitants. We don’t know much about her, we don’t even know her name (but the synopsis gives it away), except that anyone she touches feels excruciating pain that can be lethal. She has been alone in her cell for 264 days. One day, she’s told she’s getting a cellmate. Juliette hasn’t seen anyone since her parents gave her up to the Reestablishment. Her new cellmate turns out to be Adam, a boy from her past.

Characters:

Juliette, protagonist, kind of stumps me. I loved that she has such a strong moral compass. That, even though others treated her like an animal, she still tried to be nice to others. Maybe it’s a little unrealistic, but I liked it. However, I didn’t like that some of the time (a lot of the time), Juliette just curls up into herself, terrified. She just seems to crumble.

But when she’s faced with Warner, the villain, she all-of-the-sudden grows a pair. Don’t get me wrong, I love a good kick ass heroine as much as the next guy, but usually a character is consistent. And when Juliette is with Adam, she kind of turns into some kind of temptress. All she was missing was a black, leather cap and whip. It almost seemed as if Juliette was suffering multiple personality disorder.

Adam, the romantic interest, was likeable enough. I liked that he wasn’t the usual jerk male character the protagonist hates, but for some reason falls in love with. And he’s a family man, just trying to do the right thing.

I really liked Warner, the villain. He definitely is a guy who immediately gives you the “heeby jeebies”. Yet you can almost understand why Warner acts the way he does, which is always important when creating a good villain.

Plot:

As for plot, I didn’t find Shatter Me predictable or boring. There is still plenty of action, especially toward the end of the book. There just wasn’t anything about the plot that stood out to me. That isn’t necessarily a good thing or a bad thing. It just is what it is.

Writing Style:

Tahereh Mafi’s writing style is definitely unique. Many of her descriptions are beautifully poetic, although, some of her figurative speech went over my head. Which isn’t surprising, sometimes I can be incredibly dense.

Overall:

 Even though I didn’t love this book, I’m glad I read it. Mafi’s writing style alone is a good reason to read this book. Shatter Me is a good escapist read, and very heavy on the romance. But it is also a debut of an incredibly unique writing style. I’m giving it 3/5 stars.

What about you? What did you think of Shatter Me? You know how much I love comments!