Shatter Me by Tahereh Mafi | Review

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Shatter Me by Tahereh Mafi
Shatter Me #1
Published by HarperTeen on November 15th 2011
Age Group & Genres: Fantasy, Romance, Science Fiction, Young Adult
Format: eBook
Source: Library

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.

Lupe and I made a random, out-of-the-blue deal where I read Shatter Me (the entire series), and she finally gets her act together to read the amazingness called Harry Potter (the entire series). She’s trekking her way merrily – I’ve made a fan out of her yet. #SophiaIsProud

Let’s be honest here: she gets the better deal. This trilogy and I will have a strong love/hate relationship that knows no bounds because all I wanted to do was:

• Throw my iPad at Lupe if she shows herself (not literally)
• Hug the book
• Die of laughter
• Stop torturing myself
• Repeat

Shatter Me is straight up the alley of everything I will read because a character who kills anything they touch is a golden novel. It’s like King Midas’s curse gone completely wrong.

But unfortunately, it’s my cup of tea with way too much sugar and other weird flavors.

There is a massive amount of numbers. The first 5-6 chapters had my eyes crying because 1) I really hate numbers, 2) numbers just remind me of math, 3) I don’t like math, 4) it reminds me of Calculus, which went POORLY (AKA failed the final with a giant fish flop) and 5) I think I’m allergic to numbers.

There is also a lot of strikeouts. Honestly, I can’t complain, because I use strikeouts on my own blog and if I say I hated them I would be contradicting myself. I’ve basically learned that strikeouts take up space and are sometimes unnecessary, which is the case with Shatter Me.

There are fewer numbers and strikeouts as the book progresses, but they remain. My eyes cry less, and I whine complain less about the massive use of numbers to Lupe. Poor Anelise had to witness this (as it is the tragedy of being a coblogger and dealing with two beans who actually know each other personally and outside blogging).

I don’t care about Adam or Warner. I think Adam is a shallow cheese ball (it might be his romance with Juliette because I cringed every time they’re doing romance things) and Warner is a creepy pervert, so I don’t understand why Lupe swoons over Warner. If he’s still a creepy pervert by book three, I might have to interrogate question Lupe on her fictional boy choices.

But thanks to Adam, I know about Juliette as a person, so that’s a plus. Does this mean I care about Juliette? No…

If there’s one thing I’ll agree with Lupe on this series, it’s Kenji. He is a precious little bean who deserves so much more page time than he got.

There are a lot of birds. So many birds and no explanation (not even a little). I like metaphors and all, but I still don’t get the concept of a million birds mentioned throughout the book, and Lupe isn’t too helpful. I have to go wallow in misery and torture myself some more.

I’ll be reading the rest of the series for the following reasons:

• It’s Lupe’s fault (she’s still one of my favorite people)
• Kenji the precious bean
• Why are there so many birds
• Mainly it’s just for the sake of Lupe
• It brought my reviewing soul back I think