Shatter Me review

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: There's always something special about books that have multiple aspects I usually don't like but somehow becomes the thing that makes me like it. It’s probably because there are a bunch of contradictions in this book (which is actually a good thing). For one, the main characters have one of those instant loves, but they really don't. Warner is the typical bad guy, but he really isn't. Basically things appear one way on the surface but it's just a cover up. And I'm glad it's a cover up because if the story was about what was just on the surface, I wouldn’t have liked it.

In some YA books where the male character explains why he loves the main character, he always seems to include qualities of the character I haven't seen in action.  Like she's funny, but there weren’t many examples in the book. Or she's really kind, but she only (kinda) helped one person in the whole story. Or she's caring, but the character is standoffish and doesn't like to get attached to anyone. And it’s true that these girls can still be funny and kind and caring, but I can't stand it when there's barely any proof to back it up. With Juliette, when Adam says all the nice things about her, I believe it, because there are examples to back it up. So I really believe she is everything he says he is.  

And speaking of Adam! He’s definitely one of my top YA crushes now. It's not just because he's

fine (which he is), but I love his background story too. But regardless of how much I liked Juliette 

and Adam (and them together); the cherry on top was Warner. No, I didn’t actually like him but

the additional problems he caused for Juliette were so entertaining, especially the window scene 

(my jaw dropped... not really... kind of). Even at the end, Warner creates issues, and I'm not just 

talking about the war with and against the reestablishment (I'm talking personal).

 
Now, with everything I did like about it, there was one main thing I didn’t like. The writing style 

where one word or statement is repeated three to four times times times. It just got really old really 

fast. I could take Shatter Me’s poetry like quality and Juliette comparing herself to nature and other 

various object objects objects, and even the marked out words. But I couldn't take the words being 

repeated. I'm getting annoyed just giving examples in my review  (review review lol).

Other than that, Shatter Me was great! And the last few chapters revealed something that should

make the next book VERY interesting.