Shatter Me

Shatter MeTahereh Mafi

May 31

Written By Ally Talley

Shatter Me #1

By Tahereh Mafi

TheStory

The Reestablishment has taken over the world, claiming to save it from itself. Rather than improving anything, the world has only been worse off, people are being oppressed and murdered for nothing but the Reestablishment’s own twisted purpose.

Juliette has been imprisoned for 264 days, after suffering a life of abuse and neglect. She hasn’t been touched in over three years. Why? Because her skin is lethal. Anyone who comes into contact with her skin is killed.

When a new boy arrives in her cell, Juliette is shocked to find that he can touch her skin with no consequences. Everything Juliette thought she knew is wrong and her world gets turned upside down in the blink of an eye.

TheReview

This book was everything. I had no idea that it was first published fifteen years ago. I ate this up. And I would’ve eaten it up even more back in high school. It’s YA but it is so deep and thought provoking. Frankly, I’m surprised I hadn’t heard of it before. It would’ve been a more intellectual read than say, Twilight.

I devoured this read in a day, which would have upset me but there are five more books, so I'm a happy camper. It’s very easy reading but the deep, underlying themes are intense. The whole thing was extremely meaningful and thought provoking.

I was glad for the author's note in the beginning otherwise the writing style would have probably thrown me off a bit. Because of her statement, I understood the purpose of the prose style especially when trying to evoke the seriousness of Juliette’s frame of mind due to her suffering.

Juliette’s mind is just a jumbled mess of emotions, thoughts, and feelings. She has so much trauma around her ability that she has no idea who she is or what she is capable of.

But then… Adam. They could touch each other when no one else could ever come into contact with Juliette’s skin. This gave her such hope and stirred feelings in her that she had never had a chance to experience before. She had always been told she was a monster, unloveable, an abomination, that she needed to be locked up, etc. But Adam saw her as something entirely different.

Once Adam came into the story (fairly early on), there was a perfectly consistent flow of action and romance. It’s a story set in a dystopian world but the focus was more on the magical side of things and the romance. There was never a lull in the story, but it also wasn’t so action-packed that I was tired of reading it.

Truly, this was a wonderful read. Just amazing. I barely even wanted to sit down and write a review because I just wanted to get to the next book and continue the story. It doesn’t end on a cliff hanger but I have a few guesses in my head as to where the storyline is going to evolve from here.

P.S. I can’t name the side characters because it would give away spoilers but I LOVE THEM ALL. They are introduced really well in this book and I can tell I’m going to like what they add to the series going forward.