Book Review: Shatter Me by Tahereh Mafi

Photo credit: Moi :)

If I could give Shatter Me six stars on a five-point scale, I would give it ten.

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.

The Goodreads summary goes as follows:

“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.

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? 

Inspiration is Everywhere

"Sometimes there's so much beauty in the world, I feel like I can't take it, and my heart is just going to cave in." –Ricky Fitts, American Beauty

It occurred to me not that long ago, that I've been taking something for granted. Something huge, that I'd forgotten and been too caught up with life to notice.

We live in a truly beautiful world.

Photo credit: darkrigel on Flickr

Seriously, we do! It doesn't matter where you live, if you really pay attention to your surroundings, I think you'll also find that there's beauty all around us— not just beauty, but inspiration waiting to be noticed. And we writers could always use a little extra dose of inspiration.

As writers, we need to learn to be alert and aware of our surroundings at all times— we need to be observers so that we can pick up on the little moments that most may miss, but could be the inspiration that starts your next novel. We need to be on the lookout for beauty.

In this case, I don't mean the conventional definition for beauty— I mean anything that could turn into inspiration.

Beauty is a rainy night and when the fog sits over the road and blankets the base of the trees around you and it's just moody enough to sit on eerie.

Beauty is a piece of broken glass on the street that's catching the sun just right.

Beauty is a new parent looking at their newborn for the first time.

Beauty is the morning after the first snowfall, when everything is perfectly pristine and white and quiet.

Beauty is an abandoned warehouse consumed by the Earth around it.

Beauty— inspiration for our writing— it's everywhere. We just need to become aware of it so we can see it.

 

Interestingly, I stumbled (or tumbled, I should say) across this video after writing this post. It’s a wonderful example of our majestic world and if you have the time, I highly recommend you watch a few minutes of it. Enjoy!

Hdr skies from Tanguy Louvigny on Vimeo.

Where do you find inspiration for your writing?

Character Beauty in Imperfection

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Not too long ago, I wrote a post on what makes a character beautiful. While I talked about inner versus outer beauty then, today I want to talk about another aspect of the equation.

Imperfection.

The most memorable characters to me (and I suspect I’m not the only one), by and large are the ones with imperfections. The ones who make mistakes, who battle inner demons as well as evil antagonists, who fight a war inside themselves that reflects the war going on around them. My favorite characters are conflicted people doing the best they can with what they’ve been given, and the choices they make are often a far cry from perfection.

And that’s the way it should be.

When you think about it, imperfect characters are something many of the most popular books have in common:

The Hunger Games—Katniss is known for being a strong female lead, but sometimes she’s too strong. In the first book she has difficulty getting sponsors (which are necessary for survival) to like her because, frankly, she’s not a particularly likable person. Imperfection. Depth.

Harry Potter—Even if you haven’t read Harry Potter, you probably know Harry is far from perfect. He makes plenty of mistakes (some with dire consequences), he’s often a jerk to his friends and it takes him the course of seven books to realize that he doesn’t need to fight his battles alone. Imperfection. Depth.

Imperfect characters resonate with readers because they’re realistic—just as no one is perfect in real life, no characters should be perfect on the page. Imperfections, to me, are beautiful—they’re the nuances that make our characters unique, the flaws that make them real, the conflicts that make us believe these are real people in real situations.

Imperfections add a powerful layer of depth to our characters—are you utilizing them?

Think about your favorite characters—were they imperfect? What about them draw you to them? What other examples of imperfect characters can you think of?

Are Your Characters Beautiful?

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Maybe it’s just me, but I feel like half of novels out there with any type of romance have a subplot that goes like this:

In a world, where a beautiful woman falls in love with a Greek-God-of-a-man, the future for their offspring looks freaking gorgeous.

You’d think the whole world was made up of Bradgelinas in these books.

I’ll admit I’m guilty of having physically attractive protagonists and love interests—which isn’t a bad thing (to a point). Readers like to imagine gorgeous protagonists just as much as writers like to write them—it just becomes noticeable when either a) everyone in your book is gorgeous or b) everyone good in your book is gorgeous and all of the bad guys (or less important people) are meh.

Let me clarify—I’m not saying you’re doing something wrong if your book falls into either one of those categories (I’ll readily admit more than a few of my WIPs certainly do), it’s just something I’ve started to think about lately and I’m going to address it in my future WIPs.

Because it turns out, just like in real life, what makes a character beautiful isn’t always a symmetrical face or toned body—it’s their personalities, their actions that make the readers fall in love with them.

What I find especially interesting is that books with characters that aren’t described as gorgeous often end up with readers who fall in love with them anyway and think the characters are hot. (Beth Revis talked about this in a very interesting blog post you should all check out).

Why does that happen?

Books allow us to do something that movies don’t—while movies show us what everyone looks like and paint a picture that we can’t ignore, books allow us to create our own images. Maybe the future love interest isn’t gorgeous…but as he does things that show his inner beauty, readers start to amend their mental image of him (or her, for that matter). A character that started off as ok physically, may end up looking straight-out beautiful by the end of the book in a reader’s mind.

Inner beauty trumps a less-than-perfect physical description.

I’m not saying you should stop writing beautiful characters—I just think we need to consider more about what makes a character beautiful. What does that word “beauty” mean anyway? I don’t think it always has to apply to something physical, in fact, I think it’s even more powerful when it doesn’t.

We live in a world where physical beauty is coveted—but to create a world in our books where there are no imperfections is unrealistic and shallow. Most of us agree, I think, that inner beauty is the more important of the two, so why not show our readers that it’s possible to fall in love with someone who isn’t physically perfect?

That kind of love story may be the greatest of them all.

So that’s my opinion, but what do you think? Am I underplaying the importance of physical beauty, or does inner beauty really trump all?  

Dear You,

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Yes, you. Reading this right now. I don’t care who you are, if you read this blog regularly, if you clicked the link that brought you here just for the hell of it or if you happened to stumble onto this page by accident.

This letter is for you.

You are beautiful, unique and loved. It doesn’t always feel like it, I know. Some days are rough and though you are part of a body of 7 billion people, you feel absolutely alone. Sometimes those days turn to weeks or months or more and it feels as though you need to fight for every moment in order to be heard, in order to be seen, in order for someone—anyone—to care.

But you are not alone. There are thousands of others out there feeling ugly, feeling forgotten, feeling insignificant and every one of them—EVERY SINGLE ONE—is wonderful and perfect.

You are perfect. Say that aloud: “I am perfect.” No, I don’t mean unflawed—every one of us has flaws—but if you continue to be true to yourself, you need not change a thing. 

Here’s another one. “I am beautiful and loved.” Say that twice a day; once when you wake in the morning and before you go to bed at night. We don’t hear it enough. The world likes to make us think that we must be tall, blonde and a hundred pounds to be beautiful. But they’ve been lying to us. Lying to you. Lying to me.

You are already beautiful and wonderful because you are unique. You are YOU. You have a birthday, a favorite song, a family, and when you close your eyes at night you dream of faraway places and impossible lands. There are days when the tears never run out and days when you laugh so much it hurts to breathe. Inhale deeply for a moment—remember that you are alive, that every breath is a new one, that every second is a moment that is uniquely you.

You are beautiful. You are unique. You are loved. Don’t let anyone tell you otherwise.

Enjoy today, friend. Today, just as every day, like you, is special. Go outside and enjoy the fresh air. Smile. Read your favorite book, listen to your favorite song. Treat yourself to something delicious because you deserve it. Smile again—it’s good for you! 

Get in touch with someone you haven’t spoken to in a while, but you wish you had. They’ll be glad to hear your voice again. Maybe they’ll cry a little, maybe they’ll laugh or maybe they won’t answer at all. I don’t know but try anyway because our family, our friends, they are the ones that have loved us from the beginning and will love us until the end.

Now, I know there are some of you without a family, I haven’t forgotten about you. Go out and create your own family. Find people you can trust, people you can hold on to for the rest of your life and spend holidays with. Maybe you don’t have anyone like that yet, and that’s ok. There are good people out there, waiting for you. They don’t know it yet, and it might take some time to find them, but they’re there, I promise, and you’ll know when you’ve found them.

Dear you, don’t let the world get you down. Don’t give up on your dreams and most of all don’t ever forget how beautiful and wonderful you truly are.

Now, go on. Enjoy today. Enjoy tomorrow. Enjoy every day, because every day is new and made for you.

And when you’re feeling down, read this again and remember how wonderful and perfect you really are.