Review: Shatter Me

"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."
- Goodreads

Stats:

• Publisher: HarperCollins
• Release date: November 15, 2011
• Page count: 352
• Would appeal to: Dystopian lovers, aspiring authors (for amazing writing)
• Unique elements: Utilizes the strike through throughout, uses numbers instead of spelling them out

Favorite Quotes:
"The tilt of his head cracks gravity in half. I'm suspended in the moment. I blink and bottle my breaths."

"I turn on his shower at the same time I turn on my own and his complaints drown under the broken bullets of the barely functioning spigots."

"His eyes are the perfect shade of cobalt, blue like a blossoming bruise, clear and deep and decided."

"My eyes are 2 professional pick-pockets, stealing everything to store away in my mind. I lose track of the minutes we trample over."

"My heart is a field of lilies blooming under a pane of glass, pitter-pattering to life like a rush of raindrops."

"It's the only reason I have asylum from the preying eyes of hundreds of lonely men. It's the only reason Adam is staying with me-- because Warner thinks Adam is a cardboard cutout of vanilla regurgitations."

Juliette-- a main character for whom my heart wept. Her touch could kill a person. So no one came near her. Not her parents. Not the kids on the playground who threw rocks at her. She was always a monster. Until she was finally locked up in a cell for an accidental crime, her parents more than willing to see her go.

For three years she's been away from her home. For 264 days she hasn't touched a soul. Then a boy is thrown in with her. Is he crazy? She doesn't know. Is he gorgeous? She finds it hard to look away. She recognizes those blue eyes. But he must not remember her.

Thus begins several nights where Juliette huddles in the corner. He asks so many questions. So does she. They hardly get answers. Juliette is let out by a leader in the army named Warner. The army that's taking over and enforcing the Reestablishment for the supposed good of a dying society living on a dying earth. He wants to use her "gift" for his own purposes. He's also busy leading an army. Killing soldiers who disobey. Trying to obtain the unattainable, namely, her.

Author Tahereh Mafi weaves words like nobody's business: descriptions to die for. The story is perfect from Juliette's view. The repetition of certain words three times really convey urgency, and the strike throughs are an interesting way to see what her subconscious is trying to supress or the words she's embarrassed to think. The story's pace was perfect; I certainly couldn't put it down. Action, creativity, fun dialogue, and especially juicy romancy-- this book's got it all. I wonder how long it took for Mafi to create such sigh-worthy love scenes. It's impossible not to root for the two young lovebirds.

Adam is the perfect guy-- his loyalty, dedication, and bravery are doubled when Juliette's safety is at stake. The minor character of Kenji was just the right amount of cocky to make me laugh. And Adam's younger brother James is so adorably fearless. Warner is gross and pathetic, but will there be electricity between him and Juliette in the next book? I'm sensing something developing...

I'm so eager to find out more about the world Mafi has created. The ending was good but still left me wanting more. My only bone with this-- the phrase "bleeding" was a little overused in the middle, and mostly it was the figurative kind of bleeding. Still, I would recommend this book to anyone and everyone, if not for the plot, for the writing alone.