Shatter Me

title: Shatter Me
author: Tahereh Mafi
series: Shatter Me #1
published: 15 November 2011
publisher: HarperCollins
genre(s): dystopian, postapocalypse, romance, sci fi
pages: 368
source: bought
format: eBook
buy/shelve it: Amazon | B&N | BookBub | Goodreads

rating: | series rating:

the blurb

I have a curse
I have a gift

I am a monster
I'm more than human

My touch is lethal
My touch is power

I am their weapon
I will fight back

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.

my review

I have had this book on my TBR pile for too long.  Why did I wait so long to read it?!  I loved just about everything abou this book!  The premise was unbelievable, albeit terrifying.

The world that the author has create is bleak, very bleak.  The environment is almost a wasteland, changed and damaged almost beyond hope.  Society is almost unrecognizable to what we know, ruled now by what is essentially a global conglomerate.  The world is so damaged that it has even begun to genetically change the living organisms that inhabit it.  Those humans affected are hunted down, locked up or even killed for their newfound abilities.

The beginning of this book was horrifying, setting the mood for the way the world is now.  Juliette is one of those changed people, now hovering on the brink of insanity.  She is lost, confused, and desperately alone.  Until she unexpectedly meets a boy, a boy from her past.  The way they initially interact truly shows just how isolated Juliette really is and it is heart wrenching.

The characters are simply amazing.  None of them can be clearly delineated as good versus bad.  Most have moments of both.  What makes them good or bad is how they feel about the things they have done.  It makes for some real depth and emotion.  That’s the thing… despite the bleak world, this is truly a beautiful book.  The world of Shatter Me is just enough like our own to be terrifying with the possibilities.  But some of these characters still have hope and spirit and that is a beautiful thing.

My absolute favorite thing about this book was the writing style.  At first, it threw me… the use of strikethroughs, choppy phrases, run-on’s, and lack of punctuation from time to time.  But you quickly realize that those things are deliberate and perfect.  They completely underscore Juliette’s state of mind as she goes through some of the things that she does.  It’s a brave choice and an absolutely effective one.

Things to love…

• The depth of the world.  Bleak, yes, but totally able to be envisioned.
• The writing style.  Such a great way to create mood.
• The characters.  There are no clear-cut good versus bad.

This is a fantastic and unique take on the dystopian/post-apocalyptic genres!  The writing style is creative and the characters are absorbing.

Rating Report
plot
characters
writing
pacing
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reading challenges:

• 2014 Dystopia Reading Challenge
• 2014 Ebook Challenge
• 2014 Everything YA Reading Challenge
• 2014 Outdo Yourself Reading Challenge

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