Author: Tahereh Mafi

Synopsis:

I have a curse
I have a gift

I am a monster
I'm more than human

My touch is lethal
My touch is power

I am their weapon
I will fight back

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.

***I will NOT finish this series.  In #2 it felt as though the characters were transformed to MAKE the story lead in a certain direction. And I can’t be OK with that.  You can see my review of Unravel Me here – Unravel Me: 2/5 Stars***

Review:

Truth be told, I didn’t want to fall for Shatter Me. You see, I have a dirty, dirty little secret. I loathe spoilers. Avoid them at all cost. And I get so angry when I read a review, and whoops they forgot to warn me about a spoiler. That’s NOT fair! But before I started Shatter Me, I noticed my wonderful friend, Chelsea, didn’t read the final book. Of course I got curious. Why would she not finish a series she loved in the beginning? So I dug and I asked and I even talked to our other blog buddies Laura & Anna (who loved all three books, by the way) and I found out some stuff that could most likely prevent my stubborn self from loving this whole series too. So I kept trying to think “do NOT get attached”. Do I ever listen when I should? Noooooo. I allowed those thoughts to roll around to the back of my head and found myself slowly becoming mesmerized by every word that fell off of these pages. Because the way the characters entrance you, the story is written, and how the words blend together are just beautiful. And you know what? Of course, I got hooked.

I don’t remember much from before. The only existence I know now is the one I was given. An echo of what used to be.

Juliette has spent her whole life alone and unloved. Her parents shunned her and the students at her school avoided or were horrible to her. To further cement her lack of love, she was locked up in an asylum. Her future is unknown, as is her ability to live to the next day. But one day, everything changes. A boy gets thrown in her room, and he reminds her of someone from her past. His name is Adam and he treats her as though she is human. But her “peaceful” new life doesn’t stay that way for long. She has been informed that she is and will be used as a weapon. You see, The Reestablishment wants Juliette so desperately because she is special. Her touch can kill.

“Of course I remember you.” My voice is a strangled whisper. I squeeze my eyes shut. I remember you every day forever in every single broken moment of my life. “You were the only one who ever looked at me like a human being.”

While Juliette is a broken person, she is defiant. She fights rules they try to place on her. She tries to find a way to negotiate to her benefit. And she has no qualms about standing up for herself, even if it is to the leader who is holding her prisoner and is obsessed about her. But goodness yes, she does cry a lot. She shed many tears, but I think I would too if I were in her shoes. So ultimately, I just let that issue roll off of me. My favorite thing about Juliette – I loved every time she tried to smack Warner back into his place. Warner is the leader of The Reestablishment, and he had a way of getting under my skin. Even though he appears to have cracks in his evil façade, by showing glimpses of humanity and decency from time to time, I disliked Warner on every level. He is crazy, evil, a bad boy…..uhhhh wait a minute here, because usually I fall for these types!!……but for some reason he helped push me right into Adam’s arms.

When I think about it, can I admit that I may be broken? Because here I am falling for another sweet man. Not the jerk, not the bad boy, but the perfectly beautiful good guy. Adam. He made me smile, he gave me butterflies and truth be told there is not one thing I didn’t love about him. From his tattoos to his crystal blue mesmerizing eyes to the way he treated Juliette as an equal and the words he used to speak to her. It all warmed my heart. Adam is everything I girl could ever want and then some.

So here I am terrified of what the future holds. I know I have allowed myself to become too attached to Shatter Me. Or maybe not? Here’s to finding out if I will continue to love Juliette’s personality, swooning over Adam, and becoming lost in the way the story progresses. I am keeping my fingers, toes and arms crossed that I will be able to trudge ahead and enjoy the rest of the ride as much as I am now!

He’s kissing away the pain, the hurt, the years of self-loathing, the insecurities, the dashed hopes for a future I always pictured as obsolete. He’s lighting me on fire, burning away the torture of Warner’s games, the anguish that poisons me every single day. The intensity of our bodies could shatter these glass walls. It nearly does.

P.S. I LOVE Kenzi. He is quirky, and has this innate ability to make everything hilarious. I just now that you will enjoy every moment that he is in a scene, too!

P.P.S. The fact that Juliette strikes out her thoughts, when she doesn’t want to think about something, wow, wow, wow. I loved that.

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 » ok, well, I guess at the end when she got her own outfit I did roll my eyes a little at the ‘superhero’ feel « Hide 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.