Title: Shatter Me [Shatter Me, Unravel Me, Ignite Me]
Author: Tahereh Mafi
Publisher: HarperTeen
ISBN: 9780062085504
Rating: 4/5
Synopsis: “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.” (Shatter Me)
I got these books as a birthday present from my best friend, as we had already talked about the books on our trip to Italy a month before my birthday. She was absolutely mortified when she learned that I did not read the books before, and she took it as her life goal to get me to read them.
And I finally did. It took me a lot of time to convince myself because there are people who either loved it or hated it.
Generally speaking, they were like a combination of every dystopia I have read before, like Delirium plus Divergent plus some other ones. And my God, the TVD (The Vampire Diaries) resemblance was killing me at one point, but I managed to get over it. (It almost made me rip my head off, ffs)
I loved these books, they are not in my favorites to be completely honest but I thought they were amazing. The story line and the plot were perfect. I never got bored while reading these, they were gripping and exciting and terrifying at the same time and I probably would have finished the whole series in two or three days if it weren’t for my hectic schedule.
The characters were very well-written. I loved how they all had their own backgrounds which were the deepest reasons behind their actions. The relationship (not the romantic kind) between each of them was unique and adorable (eg. Kenji and Castle?!)
“Unable to fly upward.
Unable to fall.” (Unravel Me)
In my opinion, the best part of this series was the unique and beautiful writing style of Tahereh Mafi. I loved the sentences she formed, I loved the feelings she loaded into them and I loved how they were able to touch my heart. There were many attention catching sentences and I wanted to highlight all of them (except I hate highlighting my books).
“Swords may cut and kill, but words will stab and stay, burying themselves in our bones to become corpses we carry into the future, all the time digging and failing to rip their skeletons from our flesh.”
My only problem with this book was how. Indecisive. Juliette. Was.
And this also includes the TVD thing I wrote above, its main reason was Juliette.
Juliette, because of her “lethal touch”, was unable to feel human love or any kind of love. She could not touch anyone, she could not kiss her mom or hug her dad or hold hands with her non-existing boyfriend. Obviously, she was very naive when it came to basic, every-day relationships.
Her naivety (which sometimes turned into pure ignorance) pissed me off, sometimes. I tried to be as empathetical as possible, seeing how she was not your normal teenager. I got where she was coming from, not knowing whether her feelings were love or deep affection + attraction, as she had not been introduced to them properly before but I still can’t help but think of those who were hurt during this journey of self-discovery that Juliette took. How she handled the matters with Adam and Warner was not for me. I don’t want to spoil anything to anyone but if you want my full opinion and don’t mind a spoiler or if you have read the books, send me a message and I can send you a full-length rant.
Lust is not love, folks, and love is not attraction.
“The possibility of losing him is 100 years of solitude I don’t want to imagine. I don’t want my arms to be devoid of his warmth. His touch. His lips, God his lips, his mouth on my neck, his body wrapper around mine, holding me together as if to affirm that my existence on this earth is not for nothing.”
Plus, one thing that (also) disturbed me was how everyone was told to be grateful for what they have. One of my favorite quotes is “If you tell me that I should not be sad because some people have it worse than me, then you should also tell me that I should not be happy because some people have it better than me.” I think this explains most of the problems we face today, underestimating or ignoring one’s problems and complains because “some people have it worse”. This sentence was repeated so many times that I just wanted to jump in the book and shout “Stop!” because hey, you won’t be solving anything when you tell the person in front of you to be grateful. (And these are 100% my opinions, don’t jump on me please)
“You deserve so much more than charity,” he says, his chest heaving. “You deserve to live. You deserve to be alive.” He’s staring at me, unblinking.
“Come back to life, love. I’ll be here when you wake up.”
Still, I must say that Juliette showed an incredible character development throughout the trilogy. She started off as a frightened, damaged girl and developed herself both physically and mentally, learned how to overcome the challenges, obstacles she had to face. And in the end, she became a strong, independent woman (such a cliche sentence) who was finally able to believe in herself.
All in all, I can, without a shadow of a doubt, say that I loved this series and do not regret reading it once. It has a unique yet beautiful writing style with full of emotions and a perfect plot and some amazing character development. Leaving the (sometimes) annoying main character to a side, I think most of you who has not read this yet will love it.
Where to Buy: Amazon // Book Depository
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