Book Review: Shatter Me by Tahereh Mafi

Shatter Me (Shatter Me, #1)

by Tahereh Mafi 

Genre: Dystopia/Fantasy

Reading Grade: Young Adult

Publication Date: November 15, 2011

Source: purchased hardcover

Age Rating: 15+

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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.

  

My Review 

I'm having a hard time figuring out what I want to write about this one. There were many good things about it in that the writing was very impressive and innovative. I like that I could read it quickly because it's composed of short sentences, which gives the effect of frantic, quick movement. The strike-throughs didn't bother me at all because they're just asides (something I do all the time when I write by using parentheses, like right now). But, this doesn't mean I loved this book. I wanted to very much so, even expected to, but I didn't.

For so much of it, I thought I was reading a thinly veiled romance novel disguised as a dystopian fantasy. Thankfully, it redeemed itself by actually being about a rebellion against the dystopian government that makes up the backdrop of the story. I should have felt so relieved at that point, but I didn't because it suddenly became a crack at retelling the X-Men comic books series by Marvel. That's okay if the intended readership is mostly unfamiliar with that comic book, but I doubt those who are familiar will be terribly impressed. 

I think if the characters with special abilities, including Juliette, had abilities I'd rarely ever seen used before, or never had seen before (and, I've seen almost everything), then I would have been happier, but everyone had an X-Men mutant ability that had been thought up several decades ago already. So, I can't really feel impressed about that.

And, as for the romance, it felt rushed. I didn't get a chance to develop interest in the characters before romance was shoved down my throat. Adam was a nice character, but he was just too into Juliette in an unrealistic way. Same for Warner. Maybe Warner is weirdly obsessed because he's crazy, and that's believable, but Adam was too conveniently the perfect boyfriend without a flaw. Conversely, Warner was very flawed, and was totally neat-o at first, but when he lost all control of himself, I just lost interest. I love great villain characters, but that boy needs to enroll in Villain Training School to learn to get a grip. Great villains don't break character, nor do they ever let their guards down so easily.

Ultimately, this book was not the right one for me, even though it is immaculately written. But, great writing doesn't cut it when you don't have a particularly original premise, nor a particularly unusual story to tell. Not to mention, you simply run out of steam at the end, winding down the story in a boring, uninteresting way that doesn't make me want to read any sequel novels. It certainly has an audience who does and will continue to love and cherish it, but, unfortunately, I deviate too far outside of those boundaries.

My score: 3.5 stars out of 5. (I liked it, but not overly-so.)