Introduction
Shatter Me, written by Tahereh Mafi, was published on November 15th, 2011, by HarperCollins Publishers. This book is the first of a six part series, and it was recommended to me - repeatedly - by several friends who loved it themselves. A trip to Barnes and Noble had me picking up the first of the series to read and evaluate if it would be worth getting the rest. A readthrough and several trips to the bookstore later, and I quickly had the remainder of the series. I immediately fell in love with these books and finished them almost as fast. As a result, there were many late nights and no time to write reviews between putting one down and picking the next up. Don’t worry though, if you haven’t read the whole series yet, the Thoughts section will contain spoilers for only Shatter Me. I did my best to write this review in the mindset I had before completing the series. If you haven’t had the chance to read these amazing books, I highly recommend it to fans of the dystopian, action, or romance genres.
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
Told directly through the eyes of seventeen-year-old Juliette, this dystopian action book is the first of a six-part series following her as she seeks to escape those who locked her away in fear of her lethal touch.
Thoughts
The first thing that stuck out to me was the writing style. Honestly, how could it not? The strikethroughs and repetition reveal her real thoughts, even the ones she refuses to acknowledge herself. Even though the extent of her social isolation is drilled into the reader, the lack of dialogue is replaced with an abundance of description from the girl who sees everything but can participate in nothing. It’s raw and poetic, and the most prominent emotions coming at me through Juliette’s internal monologue are desperation and longing. They cut through so strongly it was hard not to empathize with her. This did not, of course, make her a flawless character - the opposite actually. Some of her behavior is downright juvenile, which checks out for a seventeen-year-old who spent the vast majority of her life in isolation, but would be annoying for a character I didn’t feel as attached to. This, in turn, makes me like her more because she is imperfect, and sometimes volatile and impulsive.
Before going on, it also seems important to note the juxtaposition between the writing style and the goal of The Reestablishment in the book itself. They want to destroy all individuality - books, movies, religion, language - and make one universal population. Juliette (and Adam) are vehemently against this, and I feel that nothing shows that more effectively than how the story is told through her.
Much of her more aggressive behavior stems from her passion, and that is one characteristic matched across the board. Every single character in this book is fighting for something or someone, even if those things couldn’t appear to be more different. Juliette, Adam, and Warner all clearly have their own agendas. Juliette wants to be free most of all, and she wants to spend her free life with Adam, the only person who has ever cared about her, and one of two who can touch her without facing the lethal consequences. Adam wants to escape the army fighting for the establishment that goes against everything he stands for. He wants to protect his younger brother, James, and finally tell the girl he has loved his entire life how he feels. Warner wants to use Juliette’s ability - and his strange immunity to it - to weaponize her, so he can destroy the world and build it anew. We don’t spend much time on Warner in this book, and even when we do, it’s seen through Juliette’s eyes, so I feel that it’s telling that his motivations seem so clear to me.
Admittedly, I can sense the love triangle on its way. Warner’s heartless demeanor and apparent disregard for Juliette’s wants and emotional state makes him seem automatically second to Adam’s protective and caring nature towards the girl he fell in love with because of her actions and personality. Seeing him with James and even with Kenji - both characters I have fallen in love with - solidifies all of that for me. I consider Juliette the “peak” of the love triangle - which I am choosing to define as the one being fought over - and therefore the one that matters most as far as making a decision. As of reading this book, it seems clear that Juliette wants Adam and Adam alone, and while I am positive there will be more conflict and gray areas added later, I am siding with her on team Adam for now.
The writing style was game changing for me, and the decisions made by Mafi brilliantly immersed me in the story, investing me fully in what happened next. The slow burn was nice, and I am going to withhold further opinions on the love triangle until future installments and reviews to see how it develops. The characters were all very different and well-defined - even through Juliette - and the character interactions were fascinating. Still, I have a feeling (and have been outright informed) that there are better things coming in future books. Because of this, I am going to give this one an 8.5/10.
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