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| Photo credit: Moi :) |
Long before the book came out, I heard a lot of online hype about
Tahereh Mafi and her upcoming debut. I was curious, so I followed her on Twitter and started reading her blog—and I could immediately see why her fan
base was growing so quickly.
Online, Mafi is funny, encouraging, genuine and sometimes even
inspiring, so naturally I clicked on over to see what her book was about.
“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.”
I
was hooked, and I waited patiently for my pre-ordered copy to come in the mail.
It
arrived. I read it. I loved it.
Shatter Me is the best combination of elements—it’s
exciting, the plot is interesting, the characters are diverse, the setting is a
perfect touch of dystopia and most strikingly—the prose is absolutely beautiful.
Mafi’s writing style is unlike anything I’ve ever read before and I’ve fallen in love with it. Truthfully, even if you don’t like dystopia or paranormal YA books, I’d recommend you read Shatter Me anyway if only for a brilliant example of a pitch-perfect voice.
Mafi’s writing style is unlike anything I’ve ever read before and I’ve fallen in love with it. Truthfully, even if you don’t like dystopia or paranormal YA books, I’d recommend you read Shatter Me anyway if only for a brilliant example of a pitch-perfect voice.
It’s easy to see why Shatter Me was optioned for a movie so quickly—it’s a very exciting
read with some truly memorable characters. (Remember that post I wrote about minor characters? Shatter Me gave me
a new favorite secondary character to add to my short list—that’s how good it
is.)
My
only criticism with Shatter Me is a
minor one—without spoiling anything, I thought some of the romance was a little
over-the-top, however I understood the reasoning behind it, so really I didn’t
mind it that much (or at all, to be honest).
In
conclusion if you like YA—read Shatter
Me.
If
you like dystopia—read Shatter Me.
If
you like exciting books—read Shatter Me.
Hell,
if you don’t like any of those things but you like well-written books—for
crying out loud, read Shatter Me.
I
absolutely loved this book—it easily jumped into my list of favorites—and I am
eagerly awaiting the unnamed sequel.
I’m going to be reading Matched
by Allie Condie next—what are you reading?
21 comments:
Sorry, but I'm not convinced you enjoyed it!
lol you're right, I wasn't very clear. My apologies. :D
I picked it up on your recommendation. If I don't like it I will be back here to blame you for not only that, but several other personal issues of mine unrelated to the book.
lol I hope you enjoy it! ^_^
Me too. It'll be awhile before I get to it, but I'll definitely let you know.
I look forward to seeing what you think! :)
I heard another review that came to a similar conclusion. I guess I really need to check it out now.
I hope you do!
Wow! Can you give a stronger recommendation than that, Ava? I've been hearing lots of great review and look forward to reading it as well!
In my opinion, it's the best book I've read all year and definitely deserves the raving review. :)
Thanks for introducing me to this author, Ava. I hadn't heard of her, but it seems like she's doing some pretty cool things.
She most certainly is. ^_^
I've "known" Tahereh since I started online. Immediately (like everyone else) I LOVED her. At some point I was like, can she really be this amazing for reals?? And I'm here to tell you YES YES SHE CAN. She really is that genuine and amazing. And her writing is... what's the best word? HONEST. It's definitely something every writer should read and probably study, if you can slow down enough to do it. Yes, that's a challenge.
Honest--I like that, definitely fits her writing. I'm definitely going to be re-reading Shatter Me at some point in the future to take a closer look at the writing itself. It really deserves that kind of attention.
I am so looking forward to this one! I recently won an arc from Shannon O'Donnell and can't wait to see it in my mail box!
Ooo, how exciting! Let me know what you think once you read it! ^_^
The writing threw me at first. I'm not into the crossing out of words. But I soon fell in love with the voice and story. It's one of the best YA dystopians around. I can't wait for the sequel. :D
It's certainly subjective, but I actually found I liked the crossing out of words. Maybe it's just because I haven't seen it before, but I thought it was a pretty neat idea.
Definitely agree, though. The voice and the story is fantastic--yet another addition to my collection of awesome YA dystopians.
It was a great book, but I agree the romance was handled in the wrong way. Those love scenes still confuse me. Are they supposed to be a metaphor for sex? Are they actually having sex yet they're not? Or is it just plain old cuddling that's ignoring sex?
That sounds dirty. But these are mature teenagers we're talking about.
Really, the bigger problem was the way numbers weren't spelled out, but it was otherwise a good book.
I could be wrong, but I don't think they actually did the deed (and judging by some comments I've seen on Shatter Me's FB page, the insinuation seems to be that they've yet to do it). And yes, they are definitely on the mature side.
I'm relatively sure Mafi had a reason for not spelling out the numbers, but it was definitely an interesting and unusual choice in writing style.
Hi!I would love if you checked out my review for Shatter Me here! http://bookaholicsreviews.blogspot.com/2015/01/shatter-me-by-tahereh-mafi.html
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