Shatter Me (Shatter Me, #1)

by Tahereh Mafi

[Stephanie]

I went into this book expecting myself not to like the writing style, with all the weird metaphors and all, but it wasn't as bad as I thought it was going to be.

That being said, the writing style did bother me at times. I found myself skipping over the strange metaphors and the striked out text towards the end because I didn't care anymore and I feel that after a certain point it doesn't offer a lot to the story anymore. The writing is very smooth and easy to read, though. So that was a plus.

There was one part in the beginning when Juliette first meets Adam (I don't have the book with me anymore or I would find the pages) when quotations marks seem to just disappear. I was very confused and had to go back and reread it, and the quotation marks came back after only 2 pages. I understand Juliette is crazy and she's the one writing the story, but why did the quotation marks stop for that one scene?

The ending was much stronger than the beginning. The beginning was very boring to me, with Juliette in her cell with Adam. And it didn't make much sense. I wish there was more of an explanation for how Juliette figured out the ways of the place. Like, how did she figure out that when her cell door randomly opened, that that was her time to go find the showers? And how did she even find the showers if the place was pitch black and then find her way back to her cell? Did she even bother trying to find a way to escape? Juliette stressed the point to Adam that they only had a certain amount of time to shower before her cell door shut again and that it was very important for them to get back in time. So what happens if the door shuts before they get back? Why is none of this explained?! I can't accept the 'because Juliette is crazy' reason because I feel like that is just lazy writing.

Once Juliette gets out of her cell and is confronted with what is happening with the world and how she can 'help', it gets a lot more interesting. I really liked where the story was going at the end, and made me want to pick up the next book, but I'm going to wait a while and give myself some space from all the metaphors before I jump back into it.