Shatter Me: Shatter Me (#1) Featured Hot

I can't read fast enough, I can't read fast enough, I can't read fast enough! My eyes are blurs raking across every word, every word, every word, burning into my brain... I keep going...

ORIGINALLY POSTED ON http://shelversanon.blogspot.com

SHATTER ME is a first-person narrative from Juliette, a seventeen-year-old girl from an Orwellian future, who is locked in solitary confinement to protect others from her lethal touch. Now really, if that fact alone doesn't grab you, I doubt anything in this review will convince you otherwise, but I'll try.

According to Juliette, her lethal touch (she causes excruciating pain and eventual death in whomever she touches) has been with her since she was an infant, causing a lifetime of alienation and isolation. She is treated either as a freak or a nonentity, both at home and at school, culminating in her solitary confinement after she accidentally touches and kills a stranger.

264 days later, she is given a roommate, a smokin' hot boy named Adam. Eventually, we learn that Adam is a face from her past, and it's no accident that he was placed in Juliette's cell. As the story unfolds, Mafi, through Juliette, tosses us other tantalizing details, such as descriptions of the Big Brother-esque ruling class called The Reestablishment, whose local leader, Warner, is responsible for arresting and confining Juliette.

Warner is also the one who releases Juliette (into his own custody, of course) and tries to persuade her to use her power for the good of The Reestablishment. In his own way, Warner is smokin' as well (isn't that always the way?), but he dreams of power and control, even as he seems to crave Juliette's company for her own sake and yearn for a way to show his new captive how thrilling power over others can be.

So now Juliette has to choose - Adam or Warner? Established power or rebellion? Her choice would be easier if she knew whom she could trust, including herself.

Juliette is a nutcase, and I love her for it, and I love Mafi for letting Juliette find her voice. The prose is distinctive with its stream-of-consciousness, rambling careful wording, babbling fears, and obsession with numbers. The book is her journal, her thoughts as things happen, and as quickly as the thoughts come tumbling out she goes back and carefully edits herself, allowing us a look at things her character would truly never say but would still think. These edits, as well as Juliette's fixation on numbers and counting, are her attempt to control herself and her world, or at least what little she can, as she never can control the power of her touch except through isolation. When a voice is true and consistent, I find myself thinking with that voice long after I've walked away from the book, and Juliette was in my head from start to finish.

Warner is probably the second-most fascinating character. He's the villain, the Hyde to Juliette's well-meaning Jekyll, but Mafi allows him moments of humanity that lend him a depth that Adam lacks. Optimist that I am, I would be thrilled if he found his own (at least partial) redemption by the end of the trilogy, but I will nevertheless be happy to follow him down his crooked path wherever it may lead.

Overall, Mafi receives solid marks for this story. The premise is interesting and the story is addicting, even if the ending falters into somewhat familiar territory. For those who enjoy the angsty, pathos-ridden, somewhat unrealistic romance found in Twilight, this book is for you. I am not one of them, but I will wait for the sequel with measured interest for the sake of Juliette, the fascinating little freak superhero.

***Points Added For: Unique voice, addicting storyline, flawed baddie, twitchy protagonist, wisecracking sidekick, a touching twist!

***Points Subtracted For: Unrealistic romance timeline, too-true lover, stereotypical malevolent parents, love triangle, poor cover art (That's supposed to be Juliette? Are you joking?).

***Good For Fans Of: Twilight by Stephanie Meyer, Firelight by Sophie Jordan, Divergent by Veronica Roth, lovers of angsty teen romance.

***Notes For Parents: The following book contains moderate amounts of violence, poor teen choices, and at least one makeout scene.

I love this book.
Seriously. I started it while at work, and read practically the whole thing in between checking out customers during my eight hour shift.

It was recommended to me by a friend here on goodreads. I was a little iffy at first- mostly because the cover doesn't look like something I usually would pick out, but I guess you shouldn't judge a book by its cover.

Juliette is different. Very different. She's never had a friend, no matter how good natured she really is. She doesn't touch people. She can't. Her touch is fatal. The Reestablishment locked her in an asylum for what she did. No one cared. She thought no one cared, or even noticed. She was completely alone. Out of nowhere, it seems as though The Reestablishment has changed its mind. She is of value. She will be able to fight their wars for them. But will she pay the price of her humanity to do what they tell her?

The way the author decided to write this is so perfect. It took me a few pages to get used to it, but after that, I liked it LOVED IT. It makes you feel like you are in Juliette's head, utterly and completely.

The plot is great too. I was easily able to follow along with whats happening. It was pretty much just perfect. Even though no one in the realistic world would be able to normally relate to a person like Juliette, I still did. Her character was shaped with such a great personality, making me enjoy the book even more. The reader knows everything she thinks, everything she sees. It's the perfect way to write a story. The symbolism was interesting as well- I loved the flying white bird. I hope it follows along into the next book of the series as well.

The second book doesn't come out until February 2, 2013. That's not for another year. I don't think I can wait that long.
Shatter Me kept me entirely focused on the book. I had no clue what was happening in the real world because I was so enveloped in the world of The Reestablishment. This book deserves 5 out of 5 stars for the characters, the mechanics of the writing, the plot. Everything.

Wow. This book lived up to my expectations! This was not another whiny-girl love story. This was actually very good!
The story that was told in this book was about Juliette, who can kill someone by touching him/her. How cool and horrible is that? Never being able to touch anyone should be terrible. Not being able to shake hands, or help someone when they need it. But, you can't be touched by anyone either. So when a tiny, little accident happens, and a little bit of your bare skin and someone elses bare skin are involved, you might just end up killing someone...
Juliette, the main character, is unique. Not only because of her 'gift', but also because of the way she acts and reacts to things. Juliette might always do something unpredictable, just to keep the story interesting. She will not obey orders from someone she dislikes. Actuall, she just won't obey orders, because she has her own will, one of the few things that still is hers.
The world this book was set in reminded me a little bit of the Hunger Games. Mainly that was because of the Reestablishment, they were like the Capitol. Also, the world is destroyed. Then there was Juliette, who was in the same position as Katniss was in in Mockingjay. Fight for them, or fight agains them. I didn't mind the tiny things they had in common. Actually, I liked those things, and I loved the Hunger Games.
The writing style of the author was great, easy to get through and a normal pace. This made the book even more enjoyable!
And oh my god the romance in this book was so awesometastic. Usually I am not the girl who loves the romance books. Of course, I like romances, but it shouldn't be a book only about romance. Tahereh Mafi combined romance and action in this novel, and she totally nailed it. I didn't lose my concentration once while reading this book. I didn't even look on facebook or twitter, which is a total miracle!
Only one thing, don't start reading this book on the evening before you've got to take 3 exams! I hope I didn't fail any :S I just couldn't put this book down, and well, then my study schedual was messed up :$ But whatever, it was totally worth it!


A book I'd recommend to every girl that loved the Hunger Games, or any other dystiopian series that contains romance. Full of romance and action, Shatter me really is a read you should be checking out!


I honestly can't wait for Unravel me, the sequel to shatter me. Too bad it'll take so long until it releases...

This book was a little slow for me in the beginning, but it soon picked up and I found myself making up places to go so I could listen to it in my car. The audio experience was one of the best I have listened to! Something unique about this book is the way the author incorporates the strikethrough. With this being an audio book you could actually hear a sound that sounded like someone scratching out a word. I thought this might be annoying, but it actually made the story more powerful.



Tahereh Mafi has an extraordinary way with words. They way she combines words is like an intricate puzzle that fits together perfectly. At times the book read like a song or poem.



I quickly grew to care about Juliette. She is such a kick butt girl, who is just discovering what she is capable of. She has always seen her "gift" as a burden, but as the story goes along she begins to consider the benefits of her gift. She definitely puts other people first, and deals with a huge amount of guilt for things that were out of her control. She has nobody until Adam shows up.



Adam is another male in YA to crush on. He is everything we want our YA heroes to be! I liked him immediately. I also liked how he had a history with Juliette, which helped me to accept and believe the "insta-love" a little easier.



A character that I ended up adoring was Adam's little brother James. He was just awesome and brave and accepting and enthusiastic. I think one of the reasons I loved him so much, was because of the narrator's portrayal of him. He was just fun!



Overall, this book was a super audiobook. With that aside, I would have LOVED this story if I had just read it. The story itself holds its own, and the audio just adds to the experience.

More of my reviews at http://wwwthebookshelves.blogspot.com

?Shatter Me was a additive, stunning, sexy, dysoptian debut that will leave you breathless after page one! It was riveting, gripping, and absolutely mesmerising! Tahereh Mafi weaves a book so good, you want to savor every sentence, word and page one hooked me!


Did you see that cover??? So flipping amazing! And the trailer????!!! Once I saw it I immediately bought it the day it came and I normally don't do that but this book...I NEEEDED IT!!!


The writing? Do I need to say anything? Its AMAZING. It flows so well and I experience a whole new sensation reading this book! It was flawless and beautifully written, Tahereh Mafi is only 23. Unbelievable right??? Everything pieces in and its hard to believe its her debut novel!. Seriously go out and buy this book. Right now.






Juliette hasn't touch another human being in exactly 264 days. She's looked up in an asylum where the Reestablishment treats her like a monster, with a curse, and they tell her locking her up was the best thing. Juliette is a strong, tough, I-have-plans-of-my-on type of heroine. She plans to escape and flee to a world she wouldn't have for once be judged.
She's counting the days, hours, second in small notebook hidden in a crevice of her cell.


Then the unexpected happens. [Yep the romance.] Adam Kent. ADAM. ADAM. He was the perfect guy for Juliette. I can't remember the times I was reading this and swooning over the scorching romance scenes. It was beautiful. It was like cookies and milk when you eat them it melts with perfection, that's how the romance is. I can't believe how easily I loved Adam and Juliette....PERFECT!!!!!!!!! :D Adam was a tought, swoony, heart-pounding guy. There was something about him that maded all YA romance novel guy not the same at all.


Warner. Warner was convincing and intrigiung each time he spoke and him personally. He can really twist your mind and make you think of yourself as a lethal weapon, like he did for Juliette. I actually liked him. Odd right? Well, he really jumped between the lines of a romantic, supper evil villan.
Juliette stood up to him. She was a total bad ass, with the power to take down people with a slight touch of her hands. Don't tell me that's not total kick-ass power! Think of her clawing through four walls of concrete and glass. Imaginative! Best Dysoptian ever. Period.


I can't stop thinking or shwoing off this book! It was PERFECTION. Perfect. Perfect. I can't stop saying how awesome this book is! I'm actually reading it for the second time beacuse I can't get enough of it and me praising alll about it! This book was delicious throiughtout, crispy in the edges, and a slice of stunning perfection! I cannott stop looking at that cover!

My initial review of this book-

Ummm.... whoa.... wowza.... jdkewqpafdnbk...
interpretation- 4.5 stars! OMGTHISBOOKISREALLYGOOD!!)

Now I've had a day or two to wrap my mind around the brilliance that is Shatter Me and I'm going to try and write a more coherent review.

You know those books that everyone says are phenomenal but you don't think it can live up to the hype but then you read it and you're blown away? Yeah, this is one of those books.

I have to talk about the writing style of this book. I'm not usually one rant and rave about a writing style but OH MY GOODNESS (!!!!) this book is so beautifully unique that I was blown away! It actually took me a minute to get into it because it was distracting at first but once I got used to it I was hooked.

I need to admit that I have a girl crush on Juliette. She is bad ass!! She is so very broken at the beginning of the book that I wanted to cry for her. I loved watching her grow and see the change that love brought into her life. I cannot wait to see where she ends up at the end of the series. I have a feeling she will blow me away with what she becomes.

Can we take just a few moments to talk about Adam? Because I can't write this review and not talk about him. You all know that I've got quite a collection of fictional boyfriends. Well, Adam has secured his place on my list. Not only is he on the list but his position on the list is near Ian O'Shea, Po, Cricket Bell, Four, Gilbert Blythe and Kaleb Ballard. Yes, he is that amazing. He and Juliette have some serious chemistry. I was worried my book would spontaneously combust a few times.

I was a little surprised by the end of the book. It went in a direction that I did not see coming at all. After thinking about it for a few days I've decided that I'm really excited about that twist and what it means for the next books in the series. My only problem is that I want the next book now ;)

After all the hype surrounding this book, I decided to give it a read. The premise: Juliette’s touch is lethal. Her parents couldn’t give her the love she craved. At school, she wasn’t allowed to interact with other children in case she harmed them. Her world is one of physical isolation and extreme loneliness.

At the age of fourteen, the unintentional use of Juliette’s “power” causes her to be taken from her parents’ home, submitted to batteries of tests, and eventually placed in solitary confinement for almost a year. The only thing that keeps her company is a notebook in which she pens her innermost thoughts, often censoring what she considers unacceptable by crossing out entire lines of text. One day she wakes up to the sight of her new cellmate: Adam.

Juliette is emotionally shattered by her ability, by what it does to her and what it can potentially do to others. The society where she lives is a dystopian one. Her world is in a state of environmental decay, extreme poverty and political chaos. One powerful individual seeks out her ability and wishes to use her as a weapon in his new social order, where old ideologies are to be destroyed and replaced.

Warner, a powerful young man in the military, frees Juliette from her prison and wants to harness her ability. Adam is one of Warner’s soldiers, and he falls in love with Juliette and is determined to free her from this new life, where she is just as much a prisoner as she was before.

Juliette is easy to identify with. She is frightened, lonely, hungry for someone’s touch, and determined not to use her ability to harm anyone. What is most captivating about Shatter Me is the stream-of-consciousness writing. The reader is immersed in Juliette’s thoughts, and the style reflects her broken, shattered mind. It is this rich style that gives the novel its uniqueness and carries the reader through the scenes.

The pace is rapid and the tension steadily mounts as Juliette tries to find her freedom and a place where she belongs. At the same time, the plot contains several very convenient coincidences, and they are not always entirely plausible. The reader needs to suspend disbelief on many occasions, and I found myself jolted out of the narrative more than once wondering: Isn’t it convenient that when Juliette is on the run, hungry, and desperate for transportation, she just happens to find a car with keys in the ignition and a bag of groceries in the back seat?

The ending has a contrived, X-Men flavour about it, which left me with a bitter taste of disappointment. After such a promising beginning, I had hoped for a more original ending, not one replete with clichés. Still, for its stream-of-consciousness writing style and insight into the character’s shattered life, Shatter Me is definitely worth reading.

Shatter Me is a highly anticipated novel, and I suppose it's with good reason. But maybe I tried too hard to love this book, just because everyone else did.


My biggest problem - my only problem, really - with Shatter Me was the writing style. Commas are hardly used, and I understand that that's the style, but it irritated me to no end when there would be a sentence like . . . Well, I know I should give an example, but my copy is in my backpack right now. :o Anyway, while Mafi writes beautifully, I feel like this writing style just isn't for me. Sometimes a sentence just wouldn't make sense to me because she would say something like "The sun and moon explode as he responds." I just DIDN'T UNDERSTAND.

The metaphors were crazy. I barely understood any of them. They were all so nonsensical and confusing that the writing was almost painful to read sometimes. The writing style seems to be what people liked most - except me.


The other problem I had? [Highlight text to read. It's extremely spoilery :P] I need an explanation for why Juliette can touch Adam and Warner and no one else. I mean, I'm sure that's coming, but I need a real reason. It's just too convenient.


Juliette was, by far, my favorite part of the book. She's an interesting narrator and an amazing character. I loved how she was strong yet vulnerable at the same time. She was so real that I loved reading from her perspective. She was even fierce at times, and the way she felt about Adam was so easily translated. Her emotions came through clearly and always made sense to me.


The rest of the characters were all really well done, too. Kenji was the comedic relief, sort of, even though he wasn't a huge character. James was adorable, and I felt like he had a purpose for being in the book. Warner was awesome, even though he was a total psycho :P Mafi did a great job on him - I could understand why he was crazy. He actually had a real reason, one that made total sense to me.


And Adam. Oh, Adam. I don't even know what to say about him. Sometimes I wish he'd seemed a little more manly, but then he wouldn't be Adam anymore, would he? ;)

The plot was a nice part of the book, too. While I wish The Reestablishment's history had been explained more, I liked the idea. I loved how the book started off, too, with Juliette locked up like a monster. I loved seeing how her feelings changed about herself.

Overall: Shatter Me was a great start to a series, although I feel like some of the questions that are going to be answered in the second and third (if there's a third. I'm assuming it's a trilogy. Everything is a trilogy these days) should have probably been answered in Shatter Me. Despite my problems with the writing style, Shatter Me is a solid read that I can see a lot of people enjoying. 3 stars.

Though Shatter Me is touted as a combination between The Hunger Games and X-Men, I think it's fair to warn you that the superhero factor of the story doesn't really get going until the last hundred or so pages. I do have to agree that the dystopian factors of the story will appeal to Hunger Games fans, minus the love triangle (no opposing Gale, guys - sorry). The main bad guy, Warner, in particular reminds me of President Snow, minus that creepy detail of the blood-tainted breath.

Oh, and Warner's like nineteen. That was another detail that really threw me off. From the way Juliette describes him at first, I was picturing him as a sleazy old man. (Just goes to show you that I need to read a little deeper into my context clues...)

On the whole, I can see why Shatter Me appeals to trendy teen readers. The writing style and plot speed reminded me more than once of Twilight, and the heroine has an appropriate troubled past and unsure future. The world is appropriately dark and hopeless - food is scarce, people are dying and the new government that has promised a solution to it all is more interested in cruel dictatorship than a hopeful future.

However, for some reason, I really couldn't attach myself to this one. It might be the hype; recently, I find that if there's too much media storm around a title, I end up pinning too high hopes on it, and get disappointed when I find that it's not really what I expected. More importantly, there's a lot of strong language (one of my major pet peeves, as you probably know by now) and a few moments of what Hollywood would probably deem "brief sensuality".

Definitely not a PG read in my opinion.

Besides the language, my other main bone of contention was with the copious use of idioms and similes and metaphors that were rather distracting and in some places, quite disturbing. (My personal favorite: "my heart was a water balloon shattering in my chest" - my own heart gave a little uncomfortable lurch at that one. It sounds less like a moment of extreme tension and more like a medical emergency.)

The general conclusion? Not really my cup of tea, but that doesn't mean it won't be someone else's. Maybe I've had too much dystopians for this year...but then again, we're about to go head-on with 2012 and the Apocalypse in a couple of weeks, so we could also take it as a year well spent in preparation.