Shatter Me (Shatter Me #1) by Tahereh Mafi

Shatter Me ~ Tahereh Mafi

This is a young adult dystopian novel (Rate PG-13)

4 out of 5 stars

Book Summary

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 review

The good, the bad and the ugly. That is how I will approach this review. Since the good outweighs the rest, I will start with the bad and gosh the ugly.

The writing style of the author was very annoying and bordered on the bad. If it were not for the plotline this novel would have been a bad parody of itself. So the writing style….Here we go.

Every sentence in this story is chopped full of metaphors, oxymoron, adjectives, repetitive words to the point that I feel like I’m choking on my own letters. The bile that is the English language burns my esophagus as I regurgitate the writing style this author slams into us each, each, each and every time there is an opening opportunity to shove it in our face. My world was not brightened enlightened by this overuse of flowery words and repetition, repetition, repetition that should have added enhanced the readers experience. Instead, I was disturbed distracted almost to the point, the point, the point that I almost gave up.

Okay, if you didn’t see that. Let me explain. The above paragraph was an example of the author’s writing style using my own words.

Despite the writing style, the characters and the storyline saved the day. That was so good that I could over look that all the flowery words did not help me visualize anything any better. In fact it hurt my visualization. Still, the story was quite interesting. As a fan of the X-men, it was interesting to read this. Surely the author is a fan too. But this wasn’t the only movie/book, this story reminded me of. It had a bit of Hunger Games, Delirium, and Divergent in it. A little, at least.

The insanity, the insanity, the insanity of the first few chapters is something you’ll just have to climb a mountain to endure, lol. But the pay off will be worth it.

Again, would I recommend. Yes, with a warning, a warning, a warning. Please be advised forewarned to be scared prepared for the writing that is this authors style. Don’t say I didn’t tell you, lol.

Audio Review

Kate Simses did a good job with Juliet.  I swear she captured the insanity that was this book.  Her voices were distinguishable.  The only annoying thing was the sound effects used to signify that the author had a strikethrough on a word.  I wish I’d known that what it was from the beginning.  It took me a bit to catch on.

My book boyfriend is Adam. Warner is an interesting character too. But Adam tugged at my heart from the beginning.

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