Introduction
Imagine Me, written by Tahereh Mafi, was published on February 16th, 2021, by HarperCollins Publishers. The finale to the Shatter Me series was published almost two years after its predecessor, Defy Me, and ten years after the release of the first book, Shatter Me. This book was easier to rank, but looking at all of them together now, I believe I would have ranked them differently in order to more accurately demonstrate the differences between how much I enjoyed them. Unfortunately, I wrote this post a long time after finishing the series, and it was difficult to predict how these reviews would shake out. As it is the series finale, everything is fair game; therefore, the Thoughts section will contain spoilers for the entire series.
If you want to learn more about Tahereh Mafi and her future work, you can follow this link to her website: https://taherehmafi.com/, and follow her on social media @tahereh.
Plot
Peace can only last for so long, and Juliette has loose ends to tie up in Oceania. After being stolen away from the rebels during a fight against The Reestablishment, Juliette must remember who the real enemies are while her friends race to save her.
Thoughts
I have to start with this because it happens relatively early and will affect much of what I touch on later. When faced with an attack from The Reestablishment, Juliette is kidnapped again. That means that someone was kidnapped at least once in some way or another in every single book, and I don’t think that it was done better in this book than it was previously in Defy Me. I do not like the continuous use of this plot device because while I think the plot of this book was compelling, it was overshadowed by the repetition of every installation that came before it.
Juliette’s kidnapping had the biggest effect on Aaron, and without her he completely reverted to the man he was before he began loving her in this cycle of their memories. He had truly softened for her, and while he hadn’t opened up to anyone else, he was far less hostile towards the rest of them, even offering them his help at Juliette’s request. It made me sad to see him become even more closed off and aggressive than we saw him in Shatter Me. However, I do agree with Castle in that if Aaron truly wanted to change, he could - with or without Juliette in his life. Unfortunately, we don’t get to see this happen before they get Juliette back. For someone who seemed unfathomably selfish in Shatter Me, Imagine Me truly shows how far he has come because of her when he is ready to save her or die trying. He’s still Aaron - tactical, bold, well-spoken, and aggressive to almost everyone in his life - but we know that with her, he is capable of the love and kindness he never remembered having in his life.
Kenji is also torn up over Juliette being stolen away once again, and his perspective was my favorite to read in this book. With Aaron out of commission and Juliette brainwashed (I know, we’ll get there), Kenji was charged with holding the fort, but it was difficult to watch him try to put everything back together when it seemed it would never be the same. However, unlike Aaron, he remained Kenji the entire time. Funny - though less so in this one given the circumstances - smart, compassionate, and brave to a fault. Of course he would insist upon rescuing Juliette, she was his best friend, but I imagine he would have laid down his life for any of them. Things with him and Nazeera at the end of the book didn’t seem set in stone, but with The Reestablishment destroyed, I have hope for the two of them.
The beginning of the book starts with Emmaline taking space up in Juliette’s mind, almost killing her in the process. As a result of the shared mental space, Juliette’s perspective is shattered for the first portion of the book. She begins to lose her memories, and her referring to Aaron as “Warner” again was heartbreaking for me and him. But then - of course - she gets kidnapped again, only this time, her father is successful in brainwashing her. She’s given false memories and trained to be one of Anderson’s most trusted soldiers - a result of his twisted games. One thing I did love about this brainwashing was the change in the writing style. The stylistic choices Mafi made have had me hooked since Shatter Me, and the cold, calculating feel of Juliette’s perspective was jarring. Something I strongly disliked was her attraction to Anderson. I understand that it was because of her connection to Aaron, and that on its own would have been one thing, but for Anderson to seem as though he may feed into it, and for Max - her father - to do so himself, was disgusting. This made me far more uncomfortable than the gore of the series, and it felt largely unnecessary. On the bright side, it made their deaths slightly more satisfying. As she gets closer physically to Emmaline, she begins to remember herself, but it wasn’t until her battle with Aaron that she was able to purge herself of their manipulation and her past trauma.
Unfortunately, while I enjoyed the battle between Aaron and Juliette, and Emmaline finally being able to kill Max before Juliette put her out of her misery - one parent for each sister - I found most of the rest of the ending to be dull. Anderson’s death felt cheap and anticlimactic, as did the rest of the world leader’s deaths. Everything happened relatively quickly, and it was more or less a hard cut straight to the epilogue. The epilogue was nice, I appreciate that it wasn’t the wedding itself and was instead the events leading up to it because it felt less cliche that way.
While this book does have solid points, it feels like a repetitive and anticlimactic end to what was a largely interesting series. For that reason, I am going to give this book an 8.9/10.
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