Book Review: Shatter Me - Tahereh Mafi

Title: Shatter Me (Shatter Me #1)

Author: Tahereh Mafi

Release Date: November 15th 2011

Publisher: Harper

Source: Bought

Goodreads

I have a curse.
I have a gift.

I'm a monster.
I'm more than human.

My touch is lethal.
My touch is power.

I am their weapon.
I will fight back.

No one knows why Juliette's touch is fatal, but The Reestablishment has plans for her. Plans to use her as a weapon. But Juliette has plans of her own. After a lifetime without freedom, she's finally discovering a strength to fight back for the very first time—and to find a future with the one boy she thought she'd lost forever.

Imagine living in a bleak future Earth with a touch that can kill, parents who don't want to believe an abomination such as you is their child, and a society that is afraid of you. Yep, that would be Juliette Ferrars' life.

Juliette was an okay protagonist for me. She was half-sane and half-sure most of the time, but considering her harsh childhood, I couldn't really blame her. I admired her, actually, because despite it all, she still retained the good in her, not blaming anyone but herself for having a touch that could harm others. She was fragile, having been isolated in a cell for 264 days, but she matured greatly over the span of 300 pages.

Now let's talk about the boys. Tahereh Mafi's goddamn lickable boys. First there's Adam, Juliette's heavily-inked but totally sweet hero whose character, unfortunately, fell flat. I liked him, sure, but he was too simply written compared to Warner - I think that's the reason why the blond, green-eyed pyscho hottie has earned a lot of fans... including me. If I were Juliette, I'd absolutely hate him too, but Warner was complicated enough to intrigue me and make me fall for him, and I just know (as of this writing, I haven't read Destroy Me yet) there's a lot more behind his bipolar ways. But after my Shatter Me re-read, know that I'm now completely torn between these two guys. (I'll just pretend Kenji doesn't exist to save myself from further division.)

The first time I read Shatter Me, I gave it a 4.5. That was last year so my best guess as to why is because of the unusual writing. It took me a few chapters to get used to the italics, the strikethroughs, the run-on sentences, and especially the heavy use of metaphors - some of which required double takes to make sense - but I soon loved it. It made it very easy for me to relate to Juliette because her voice sounded so real.

Full of questions about hope, love, and humanity, Shatter Me truly is a one-of-a-kind book. There is a lot of action towards the end, which I really enjoyed, and the X-Men-y reveal really got my hopes up for the sequel (which is now sitting right beside me but I can't get to it yet because *sobs*) and also to meeting Tahereh Mafi on March 2! ♥

MY FAVORITE PART was Chapter 26 because it pulled half of my being into being in Team 26 because it was like all the chapters before that was building towards it and then after that everything goes boom. Intense, I tell you.

RATING:

A solid five. Haven't given that in while.

(cover and summary from Goodreads.com)