Shatter Me: Shatter Me (#1)

I love the writing style,How the characters evolve in this series is just amazing. I love it! Also I adore Juliette's character here, and Warner even though he was kind of a "bad" person in the beginning I still like him for Juliette. This book is worth reading!

At first, I didn't want to read this book. But then Whitney from Whitty Novels raves about the "Shatter Me" series all the time so I decided, why not give it a go. Oh my gosh, so worth it. This book is fantastic. Tahereh Mafi creates an realistic and very believable dystopian society. A key theme throughout the book is the act of everything "shattering" and the world feeling like ice. Tahereh beautifully crafts these elements into the story in a way that really grasps your attention. Not only is the story building on point, but the writing style is beautiful. She uses similes and metaphors to beautifully convey everything. My one little problem is that she doesn't write out her numbers, but I guess that is my inner AP Language student freaking out. Man has basically messed up the Earth so much that this group called The Reestablishment is trying to fix it. Well they find this girl, Juliette who's been locked up in an asylum for awhile and who's touch can kill and they want to use her. Juliet is a character I feel really connected to. She's shy and loves to read just like me, however, when the going gets rough, she becomes a tough badass. While her love for Adam is great, I just a little hard to believe they have both loved each other so much since they were little. Then we have Warner... I have conflicted feelings about Warner. I enjoy his character and the sexy evilness he brings to the story, but goddamn he is one crazy mofo. Seriously, his obsession with Juliet is out of this world. I absolutely loved James, and Winston and Kinji. They are funny and refreshing comedic relief. Omega Point seems like it is going to be an interesting new setting.
SPOILERS
So when Adam first came into the picture, I thought he was a huge douchebag the way he treated Juliet, though we later learn he did that on purpose, which I can forgive him for. And when I found him and Juliet could touch I was mindblown and so happy. When I found out Juliet and Warner could touch, I was scared for her, yet excited. My feelings for those two are complicated. When they kissed, I was happy yet at the same time I was disgusted... I don't know who to ship.

I'm always the person who anticipates a book that every one else already loves and then end up hating it.
Honestly, I was prepared for that exact moment going into Shatter Me. It's been a few years since it was released and I'd had it on my to-read list since the beginning of time it seems.

And it started out slow...but still interesting.
And Juliette was annoying at times, but I could still stand her.
And yes, a sort of love triangle.
And the writing was odd and the repeating thing was annoying af.

But I love dystopian books. And I wasn't giving up on this.

And I'm glad I didn't.

Loved it. I need a movie of this.

Kenji, y'all. Worth the book alone.

Before I even finished reading, I had already ended up buying the next 2 books. (Thank you, bookoutlet!)

This series broke my heart and put it back together. I couldn't put any of the books down.

The first line is just captivating. How much I hated the guy we were suppose to love and then love the guy we were suppose to hate. Not to mention how she admitted to the spark between her and the "bad guy." I just couldn't stop reading. You need this entire series. It's just Amaz-balls.

SHATTER ME (Shatter Me, #1)

Author: Tahereh Mafi
Rating: 5 out of 5 Stars
Genre: YA Dystopia/Paranormal
Format: EBook, Print
Publisher: Harper Collins
On Sale Date: November 15, 2011
Recommended Reading: 15+

****THERE ARE NO SPOILERS****

SYNOPSIS: 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.

THE GIST: Juliette is locked up, has been for almost nine months. When she touches people, it hurts/kills them (think Rogue from X-men). The world is crumbling and there’s no such thing as justice–not in the world Juliette lives in. Freedom comes with such a high cost, being locked up and forgotten (or worse) might be a much better option.

I’ve seen people land on both sides of the “hate” fence with this book. It’s the kind of novel you either get or don’t, and it’s highly stylized, so if you’re into classic literature, this book might make you cringe. However, if you’re into numbers and possibly thinking the character (and you) might be crazy… you’re in for a fun ride. I’ve never seen anything like this, and it’s so unique and visceral that I would probably squeal like a star struck school girl in the presence of the great Tahereh Mafi. Saying she has “a way with words” wouldn’t quite cover it. Seriously, just preview the book online and you’ll see what I mean on the very first page.

Seriously, go look.

BREAKDOWN: Juliette’s plight is unimaginable. I can’t picture a life in which I could not touch another person. Mafi did a great job of pulling me into that dread and allowing me to feel the ache and loneliness, the sense of abandonment, and the agony of longing for human contact despite human contact being deadly (for the recipient). In reading, you hurt for this character. And she’s incredibly easy to empathize with, so much that you may even feel like you are right there with her, suffering. As it should be.

There’s plenty of action (in more than one connotation), with one hunk of a hero and a slimy yet somehow completely juicy bad guy in a dystopian society with a touch of paranormal for kicks. It’s exciting, fast-paced, intense, passionate, and shamelessly romantic. Juliette’s counterpart/hero shares a dynamic with her that’s intense from the start, and oh what a fun/excruciating ride it is watching them squirm.

Okay, okay, it can’t all be butterflies and rainbows, right? Don’t I have a single objective or critical opinion of this book? Well, not really. As I said, if you’re really into grammar, and if supposed/intentional ‘errors’ drive you nuts, or if you don’t like prose in present tense… you may not like it. Strike-throughs, random numbers, incomplete sentences, and missing punctuation all play into the state of mind of the main character of the story, which reads more like a journal than prose (as it was intended). For me, the way it’s written demanded that I read quickly, literally propelling me forward by the sheer anxiety it caused me to read the words as I imagined the character thinking them. And the style alone didn’t account for my inability to put this book down. I loved it. (Seriously, I can’t think of anything bad unless I wanted to go through and read it a third time just to find something to nitpick).

I came across this book in my search for dystopian YA novels after I’d read Divergent and the Hunger Games trilogy. It was the most pleasant surprise of my dystopian journey, and I read the book faster than I’ve read anything else to date. I literally only put it down because I had to sleep, but I picked it right back up the next day and finished. Thankfully, it was the weekend or I don’t know what I would’ve done.

I wanted a sequel so badly, and was disappointed that there wasn’t one at the time, but I knew this would be a series I’d have to follow. In October, Mafi released a novella called DESTROY ME which worked to tide her fans over until the February 5th, 2013 release of book 2, UNRAVEL ME. It’s not too late to get on board. You can easily catch up by then and be foaming at the mouth alongside me for the release of Unravel Me. In the mean time, you can move on to 1.5 in the series, the novella DESTROY ME… which I will post my thoughts on Thursday!

(Review originally posted on GliteraryGirl.com)

Let me start by saying how beautiful Tahereh Mafi writes. I haven't been touched by such wonderful writing in a while and I found myself wanting to keep devouring page after page of this book. I haven't read anything like this book in awhile, the premise was completely unique to me. When I first opened up the book I noticed that there were words crossed out and I was instantly mad that I thought someone had ruined the book! As I looked through to see how bad the damage was I realized that it is part of the book. It's a unique feature that represents Juliette's conflicting thoughts. I loved this feature; it added intrigue and provided more of an insight to Juliette's character.

I love that there are some dynamic characters in this book. Every character in this book is so full of life that they came alive out of the pages to me. I have heard critiques that Juliette is a weak person; that doesn't ring true to me. Juliette is shattered in the beginning of the book because of her past and how she has been treated. Adam is a strong, determined man that you can't help but root for. Warner is such a villain and I haven't read of such a strong villain in a long time; I couldn't help but want to punch this guy in the face through the pages. Devour Me, book 1.5, is from Warner's point of view and from what I've read it has made some people actually start to root for him which intrigues me to read this book asap.

I loved that there were some big events in the book that I didn't see coming. This book successfully delivered suspense, action and romance.

Read this book!

Before I read this, I had read a bunch of reviews most of which said this was a horrible book, and the writing style was hideous. So, I almost didn't pick this book up. Thank God I didn't listen to them. This book is fantastic.

I absolutely loved the main character and her unique power which you don't see nowadays. I also absolutely LOVED the dystopian world the author created. I guess I'm already a sucker for dystopias, but this one is one of my favorites.

The characters were amazingly developed. I was actually kind of surprised. It was hard to figure out who was the bad guy and who had just been brought up incorrectly, and all that jazz. At some times I felt angry with a character and certain he/she was pure evil, and at other times I felt as if there was another side to the character. And this is how characters should be. Not many people are truly evil or even truly good. Everyone makes mistakes.

The writing style is different. I'll give the other reviewers that. But, you get used to it. And then you start to like it...a lot.

Read the book. It's good. And once you're done read the next one, because Shatter Me is a series. And Shatter Me is one of those books that needs to be a series.

This book had me hooked. I read it every time I could, in the car, walking somewhere, and under the school desk, trying to avoid being told off by a teacher. I would like to say I finished quickly, but I tried to linger it, and the times I did read it were few. But that didn't stop me loving this book, all of it was truly spectacular. The characters, the writing style, the plot and the brilliant power that Juliette had, the power to kill when touched.

I loved Juliette's power, how awesome would it be to kill someone who got a little to close for comfort. It seemed like a brilliant dream for me, until Juliette started talking about how even her own parents hated her. This made me depressed me, I felt extremely sorry for her, something that normally doesn't happen in books, unless they are of great quality. I was dancing in relief when Adam was able to touch her, I would of screamed if he couldn't.

This worked really well until Warner was able to touch her. I wanted to punch him on the nose. I hated Warner, he seemed like a massive, rich, selfish snob, the opposite of Adam. He just wanted to use Juliette, even if he tried to show how much he liked her. He might of been an ok guy in a different universe, but he just went about life the wrong way.

I loved Adam, he was a perfect hero. I loved him, he was just the most selfless, passionate, kind character. His caring nature for his brother and Juliette is just what all boys need. He risked his life for her, including signing up for the army. He was just perfect, perfect, perfect.

i loved the writing style, I have never read a book that had words crossed out every now and then. I thought it was weird at first, but it really worked in the end. Also, at the start, Juliette was slightly insane, her mind wandering into crazy land every now and then. But as the book progressed, both the crazy times and the crossing outs decreased in number, as she started becoming less insane. It was just a brilliant technique that worked really well.

This book was truly unique, and I cannot wait for the next one to come out. When it does, I will be the first to get it. It was just an amazing book that everyone should read.