Shatter Me by Tahereh Mafi

 



Summary Blurb From GoodReads
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.

   Shatter Me, by Tahereh Mafi

Publisher: Harper Teen

Release Date: 11/15/11

My thoughts:

My feelings toward this book are all over the place.  Half of me wants to go with 2 snowflakes while the other is screaming for 5.  So, I am going to try and work out my thoughts and feeling here.

I loved the intensity between Adam and Juliette.  I have to say their chemistry is the best I have ever read.  To make it even better there is no instalove!  They have known each other since they were in fourth grade and were there for each other in so many ways that even though they never spoke a single word to each other they both knew they were safe with the other.  When they are thrown together and forced to make a semi friendship their feelings for each other are in your face and I loved it.  They are seriously the most electrified couple I have ever come across while reading.  There is one scene where you just know they are going to kiss and oh my that scene could have melted butter in a freezing blizzard.  So yeah you can say that I love their connection.  That being said though I really wish that the story would have taken a bigger seat in the book.  I felt like most of the book was spent setting up their romance and I think the plot needed more explanation.  The glimpses that we get are great but I want to know more about why things happened and why the world is the way it is.  

The wording in this book was great also.  I loved the flow of the words that the author chose to use.  Every line had a purpose and I liked reading how Juliette could describe rain and simple things so vividly.  It made everything seem so much more real and interesting.  That being said after awhile I got tired of all the imagery words and just wanted the story.  The words were beautiful but there were just too many of them.

The secondary characters were great.  Kenji and Warner while being complete opposites were awesome.  Warner definitely has that unstable icky factor going and Kenji well I hope he gets a happy ever after because he is too cute not to.

Overall the storyline was intriguing and unique.  It does resemble the X-Men quite a bit though.  Juliette is very similar to Rogue and the leader of the Movement reminds me of the leader of the X-Men (I can’t remember his name).  I am very curious how the sequel will play out and I am hoping it will be amazing and more story driven.



3 Snowflakes