amazon - Hardback £9.84
Book Description
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.
In this electrifying debut, Tahereh Mafi presents a world as riveting as The Hunger Games and a superhero story as thrilling as The X-Men. Full of pulse-pounding romance, intoxicating villainy, and high-stakes choices, Shatter Me is a fresh and original dystopian novel—with a paranormal twist—that will leave readers anxiously awaiting its sequel.
My Thoughts
Awesome Read!
I’ll get the one semi-negative thing I have to say out of the way. The cover. Although very pretty, it’s too pretty. Shatter Me is not a pretty story. It’s hard. It’s unapologetic. And it’s exceptional. I think a cover more in keeping with other current dystopians such as The Hunger Games and Divergent would have been more fitting. However… tis neither here nor there and does not take away from the fact that Shatter Me is a wonderful, must read.
The beauty of Shatter Me is all in the writing. Tahereh Mafi has magically combined a lyrical and unique style of writing with the fluidity of fast-paced prose. Her use of strikethroughs for the heroine and narrator, Juliette’s, subconscious thoughts is pure genius. It allowed me to get to know her better and like her and admire the strength she doesn’t even know she possesses. As for Mafi’s turn of phrase… wowzer… her writing is stunning - poetry wrapped up in a dystopian superhero novel. There is nothing clichéd about Shatter Me. It’s a mash up of differing ideas that somehow piece together into something beautiful and new.
Juliette’s character development over the course of the novel is powerful stuff. The prose changes slightly as it eases from the quick, short unbroken sentences of someone who has spent the past year living entirely in her own head to more fleshed out, ‘normal’ sentences as she begins to acclimate to being around people again.
Love interest, Adam, is delicious - a little suspect at first, but strong, loving and loyal. The way his character unravels Juliette’s is utterly mesmerizing… the scenes with them together are written in pure word candy. Exquisitely yummy.
Other minor characters are all excellent, every single one well-developed and three dimensional, but it is the strange, twisted, calm, irrational, cruel, gentle, deranged, affectionate and monstrous paradox that is Warner that I found most compelling of all. I love a book with a million shades of grey and Shatter Me is definitely a vast spectrum of the whitest grey to the darkest.
The plot itself was incredibly fast-paced, suspenseful, disturbing, raw and action-packed. A dystopian science-fiction adventure that is just about to take off!
Cannot wait for more of this world and its spellbinding writing.
Five Massive Massive Stars!
Favourite quotes from Shatter Me:
“I always wonder about raindrops.
I always wonder about how they’re always falling down, tripping over their own feet, breaking their legs and forgetting their parachutes as they tumble right out of the sky toward an uncertain end. It’s like someone is emptying their pockets over the earth and doesn’t seem to care where the contents fall, doesn’t seem to care that the raindrops burst when they hit the ground, that they shatter when they fall to the floor, that people curse the days the drops dare to tap on their doors.
I am a raindrop.
“Juliette-“ His body presses closer and I realize I’m paying attention to nothing but the dandelions blowing wishes in my lungs.”
“Killing time isn’t as difficult as it sounds.
I can shoot a hundred numbers through the chest and watch them bleed decimal points in the palm of my hand. I can rip the numbers off a clock and watch the hour hand tick tick tick its final tock just before I fall asleep. I can suffocate seconds just by holding my breath. I’ve been murdering minutes for hours and no one seems to mind.”
“His lips are spelling secrets and my ears are spilling ink, staining my skin with his stories.”
I still haven't picked up a copy of Shatter Me. Thanks for your great review. I can't wait to read the book.
ReplyDeleteThanks! I'm glad you liked the review... I think Shatter Me is a definite Must Read! :-)
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