booksandcats
Written on Sep 3, 2022
Ostracized or incarcerated her whole life, seventeen-year-old Juliette is freed on the condition that she use her horrific abilities in support of The Reestablishment, a post-apocalyptic dictatorship, but Adam, the only person ever to show her affection, offers hope of a better future.
- ISBN10 128336350X
- ISBN13 9781283363501
- Publish Date 1 January 2011
- Publish Status Active
- Out of Print 17 February 2015
- Publish Country US
- Imprint Allen & Unwin Academic
- Format eBook
- Pages 348
- Language English
Reviews
nora
Written on Oct 19, 2021
remuslynch
Written on Mar 23, 2020
Vicki
Written on Mar 17, 2020
sug
Written on Jan 3, 2020
whisperingchapters
Written on Oct 17, 2019
My problem when I read the book was that I couldn't connect to Juliet at all... Like, at all! I couldn't even stand her. But this time around with the audio, the narrator through her voice, gave so much life and so many emotions to Juliet that I couldn't help but sympathize. I felt everything in my heart.
Now, I'm on the lookout for Kate's narrations because I loved her voice so much and can't thank her enough for bringing Juliet to life for me.
kalventure
Written on Apr 29, 2019
There's something uniquely bizarre about reading a beloved series several years after its release. First published in 2011, Shatter Me was out for eight years before I got around to it last year... and because the future ship is talked about everywhere I knew who Juliette would end up with down the road. And that knowledge really makes the events of this book hard to stomach.
Juliette Farrars has an ability that makes her touch lethal and she's been locked away after accidentally murdering someone. And forgotten, left to rot where she can't hurt anyone. Until Warner and the Reestablishment think that she could be an asset to their cause.
The worldbuilding of the dystopian future is - for the most part - largely left to the end of the book, setting up the rest of the series well to dive into the resistance and all the sins of the Reestablishment. Re-reading the book now shows how glaringly absent all of this information is in this first book, and that's... well, it is a choice.
The book is largely focused on the romance between Adam and Juliette, the worldbuilding and general overarching plot of 'fight the authoritarian regime in a dystopian future' mostly relegated to the sidelines. And the romance is a big reason that I didn't enjoy this book more. Their insta-love pairing makes sense: they are both broken people who attached onto the first person to show them kindness. Couple that with the hormones of being seventeen years old, and that's a recipe for an intense romance, although one I was kind of bored by. Adam is a little bland for a love interest, his main characteristic is his obsessive love for Juliette.
When I first read this book in 2019, I was appalled by Warner and the knowledge that he and Juliette would wind up together. How do I know this? Everyone had Juliette and Warner on their top ship lists. That knowledge hung over my head with every word: his obsessive love and desire to possess her, his forcing her to torture a child to test her ability, his ruthlessness in leadership.
While Juliette's relationship with Adam is far from healthy, Warner is abusive and toxic. I hated him in a way I know I wouldn't have had I read the books without the ship spoiler - because after reading the other two books in the original trilogy, Shatter Me lands differently. I am still incredibly conflicted about toxic relationships in YA and still don't think these actions are justified, but at least I am seeing the breadcrumbs of Warner's true self a bit more. Although with his obsessive "I love you" before getting shot, just... yikes all around.
Overall, I'm glad that my friends all decided to read the series and I gave this a second read. I was so conflicted last year because of what I knew about how romances developed, I didn't even feel comfortable landing on a rating. I definitely enjoyed the book more this time, although the romance is less palatable to me than I seem to remember. The writing is absolutely beautiful though, and the audiobook narration really delivers tension and anxiety with her performance.
Content warnings: child abuse, child neglect, torture, violence, war
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adamfortuna
Written on Mar 16, 2019
RoXXie
Written on Jun 4, 2018
Shatter Me ♦ Tahereh Mafi | Review
This book was breathtaking and absolutely surprising. When I read it the first time in 2018 I was so stunned that I couldn’t really get words together to describe my feelings. The characters, the setting and the plot are going seamlessly together. And 5 years later I am still in Aww by the writing style of Tahereh Mafi.
Shatter Me ♦ Tahereh Mafi
Opinion
Let’s start with the obvious. This cover. I do love it and definitely prefer it over all the other cover editions with a young woman in a dress on it. What’s with that anyway? What does a young woman in a dress should suggest to me? I gotta be honest, I hardly grab books with those covers. But the eye and all its details around it is so much more fitting to the book’s content than some chick in a ball gown.
But let’s get to the writing. Tahereh Mafi blew me away with her writing style. Through other reviews I already know it will be different, but this was spectacular. I loved how she played with all these metaphors and I enjoyed it. Every line is profoundly lovely and contributes something wholly original to an entirely new persona.
But… yeah, there’s a but… I got a bit worn out by all the whining of the protagonist Juliette. Sure as hell, she never had it easy in her life. Not when she was mistreated by her family and the classmates, and definitely not when she was incarcerated for a gift she never had control of. But gosh, that was way too much drowning in self-pity at certain points.
Once she found Adam, or better once they found each other, it got a better and I could watch through the chapters how her will to live and fight for her freedom grew. And my heartache over her suffering got lifted once I realized that she could be a force to be reckoned with. Then there is Adam, the only human being Juliette knows, because they went to school together, and he was never mean to her. Even if he seems nice and genuine about her well beings, there’s something off with him. But I can’t fully wrap my mind around it. Even though I do want him to be THE love interest for her.
And Warner who was sold to me as the antagonist of this book, and by all his actions so far, he is, there might be something behind his mask, that isn’t so evil. But hey, what do I know? I could be totally off with both of the male protagonists. But it all seems to go straight forward into a messed up and chaotic love triangle. I am not so sure how Kenji fits into all this, but this guy has some secrets. Ah never mind, they all got deep dark secrets and the one paying the price will probably be Juliette.
What really caught my interest in Shatter Me was the setting. The post-apocalyptic world sentiment was horrifying, and it sadly doesn’t seem so far from reality. I just couldn’t get enough explaining how it all went down. I also missed the explanation how certain persons got special gifts. But I do hope to find out more about all those questions in the next installments.
Conclusion
A very horrific dystopic world-setting with mysterious abilities of certain protagonists and others, as well as an incipient love triangle in which the end cannot be predicted. All of this is well-packed within an eloquent writing style, which I hadn’t come across yet. I just hope that the whining part of the heroine will fade away.
This review was first published at The Art of Reading.
writehollydavis
Written on Feb 17, 2018