Unravel Me (Shatter Me, #2)

by Tahereh Mafi

[inlibrisveritas]

Finally! It feels like it took me forever to get around to this one, even though I read Shatter Me six months ago and that’s a short wait for me. Unravel Me picks up three weeks after Shatter Me ends and interconnects with a few scenes from the novella Destroy Me.

The one thing that remains strong with these books is the writing, which is so poetic and unique. I honestly think that if I picked up any other book that had so many words crossed out or separated I’d go nuts. The editor in me just can’t handle it, but for some reason I welcome it with the Shatter Me books. It provides a more personal experience and it’s surprising how you can create tension just by pressing enter a few times. At any rate we’re back into the thick of it with this one and things really heat up…in more ways than one. War, relationship issues, budding friendships, and of course the love triangle. We get to see more of the Resistance, how they operate and some of the interesting powers that the other residents have. One of the best things about this is the fact that it acknowledges the grey areas involved in human lives and more importantly war. Nothing is as black and white as we want it to be.

I really enjoy the overall plot but this one felt a bit slow for me and I kind of blame that on all the attention given to Adam, who I personally find boring. He’s a good guy, he’s sweet and he loves Juliette but I’m at the point where if they are in a room together I immediately want them separated. I feel terribly for them both and the situation they have to deal with but at the same time I just don’t want to hear it anymore. The surprising relationship with Warner is more my speed because there is more to it, there is more to develop and understand than there is with Adam. Warner is a bag of cats, he’s rather pretty to look at but you can just see the crazy rolling off the guy…and you definitely know you don’t want to open the bag but curiosity (and humanity) just makes you want to. That being said I don’t necessarily want to see a full relationship between them unless some things change, but I definitely love the tension! As for the other cast of characters I’m super glad to have more time with Kenji, who is a lot of fun even when he’s being weird, and I enjoyed getting to know Castle more.

Overall I loved the book but the added annoyance of the Adam/Juliette whine-fest kind of dropped it a bit for me. I can’t wait to read book three!