Shatter Me, by Tahereh Mafi. The GoodReads summary:
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.
So Shatter Me . . . I liked it. I really did. This review might feel kinda negative, so I just want to make it clear from the beginning that I enjoyed the book a lot.
The first half of the book was fantastic. Hands down. I loved the writing and the atmosphere and Juliet and all the uncertainty and tension. But, I don’t know . . . I feel like the second half of the book lost a little bit of what made the first part so good. It shifted from more psychological action to physical action, and I thought it wasn’t quite as compelling. But that might just be personal preference.
Along those same lines, I liked Adam and Juliette better in the first part. For me, once they realized they liked each other, the story lost a bit of the draw, since I’m always a fan of “will they or won’t they” romances. And that’s another thing: their romance got a little...intense?...for me. Don’t get me wrong, I love romantic tension and I have no problem with the resolution of it, but Adam and Juliet’s romance started feeling way more like lust than love after a while.
The ending surprised me, honestly. I totally thought the book was going to end at a really intense spot, but it didn’t. I was reading along, turned the page, and was like “Oh wait, that was the end?” I just felt like it ended in a weird place.
Overall, I did really like the book. There were just some things that kept me from being totally in love with it. If the whole book had been like the first half, I would’ve been raving about it, but it wasn’t. So instead I’m just saying, Hey, this was a pretty good book.
The first half of the book was fantastic. Hands down. I loved the writing and the atmosphere and Juliet and all the uncertainty and tension. But, I don’t know . . . I feel like the second half of the book lost a little bit of what made the first part so good. It shifted from more psychological action to physical action, and I thought it wasn’t quite as compelling. But that might just be personal preference.
Along those same lines, I liked Adam and Juliette better in the first part. For me, once they realized they liked each other, the story lost a bit of the draw, since I’m always a fan of “will they or won’t they” romances. And that’s another thing: their romance got a little...intense?...for me. Don’t get me wrong, I love romantic tension and I have no problem with the resolution of it, but Adam and Juliet’s romance started feeling way more like lust than love after a while.
The ending surprised me, honestly. I totally thought the book was going to end at a really intense spot, but it didn’t. I was reading along, turned the page, and was like “Oh wait, that was the end?” I just felt like it ended in a weird place.
Overall, I did really like the book. There were just some things that kept me from being totally in love with it. If the whole book had been like the first half, I would’ve been raving about it, but it wasn’t. So instead I’m just saying, Hey, this was a pretty good book.
I'm undecided about whether to read this one. There are so great reviews and some reviews that aren't so great. I love the idea. Kinda like Rogue from X-men. But from what I can make out, there are some very convenient plot lines. Will give it a try and see how I go. Great review.
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