Shatter Me (Shatter Me #1)by Tahereh Mafi
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Raindrops are my only reminder that clouds have a heartbeat. That I have one, too.
Intense, dangerous, and absolutely awesome, Shatter Me barged into my life and didn’t let me go until I was completely finished. Every review I read prior to reading this had a negative undertone, almost causing me to move on without giving this one a chance. This just goes to show that while reviews are a great way to scope out books, they aren’t the only way to scope out books.
In the absence of human relationships I formed bonds with paper characters. I lived love and loss through stories threaded in history; I experienced adolescence by association. My world is one interwoven web of words, stringing limb to limb, bone to sinew, thoughts and images all together. I am a being compromised of letters, a character created by sentences, a figment of imagination formed through fiction.
I am absolutely and completely stubborn-ask any of my closest GR friends-If I want to read it, I will read it. No amount of bad reviews will keep me away if I think a book is worthy of my time, and I wanted nothing more than to read this book. I went in expecting a not-so-great story-I’ll admit it. I thought, Ok, so, not many people seem to like this book-it will be corny, horribly written, and completely unlikeable. But, hey! I will give it a try anyway, just because I want to.
This book was anything BUT stupid. Well…in my opinion. 😉 View Spoiler » but that was literally my only gripe. Some say this book isn’t really a dystopian. Why? Just because it has a lot of romance it can’t still be labeled a dystopian? I don’t get it. The world is falling apart and the military (or something of that sort) is taking control-food is hard to come by and animals are nill and none. People are hiding away and freedom with safety is hard to come by. There is talk of destroying all books and memories and everything we learned of our past history…they want to reshape the world. I get that there was a very light element of dystopian, but it still, ultimately, screamed…dystopian.
I’ve been screaming for years and no one has ever heard me.
Juliette has a lethal touch. Anyone who touches her succumbs to physical, mind-fracturing, limb-freezing pain-and only she can pull away and break that connection. But with that connection, she starts to feel heady and light, powerful and hungry for more, each time making her feel more and more like a monster. The same for if she touches someone-they freeze in their stance and start to fry on the spot. She is labeled crazy. Evil. Psychotic. Placed in a mental ward in a cell where she hasn’t had any human contact in 264 days, she begins to feel a little crazy herself. Until Adam, her new cellmate, enters.
”Juliette,” he whispers, and I realize just how close he is. I’m not sure why I haven’t evaporated into nothingness. “It’s been me and you against the world forever,” he says. “It’s always been that way. It’s my fault I took so long to do something about it.”
I absolutely loved this book. Yeah, it’s super far fetched, but that’s exactly what I wanted! I don’t want safe and easy when I pick up a book-I want to be transported to another world where things DON’T HAVE TO MAKE SENSE. Here is what I know: The writing was AWESOME. I love Patrick Ness, and this author made me feel like I was reading a Ness novel, and that’s so astounding to me. I was shocked to feel that way as I read. Next, I loved Adam. Sweet, kind, fierce, strong, and endearing, he was a great character to become attached to. Finally, I loved the action. It was fun, crazy, and absolutely perilous-this book had me eating out of the palm of it’s hand.
Sometimes I wish I never had to sleep. Sometimes I think that if I stay very, very still, if I never move at all, things will change. I think if I freeze myself I can freeze the pain. Sometimes I won’t move for hours. I will not move an inch.
A great story with a crazy addictive group of characters, I couldn’t put this book down even if someone paid me to. I would read this over and over again, if only to get that awesome, exhilarating feel I did the first time. But the thing is, I can never re-read this book for a first time and that saddens me. But what I can do is get my friends to give it a try. If nothing else, this is an escape from reality that will keep you interested for a few days. I can’t wait to read book 2, but until then I will live in the moments when I read this first installment, and I will thoroughly enjoy looking back at my many, many highlights.
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