Tuesday, December 20, 2011

Review: Shatter Me

Shatter Me (Shatter Me #1)
by Taherah Mafi
338 pages
Published November 15th 2011
by Harper/HarperCollins

Summary:
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.

Thoughts:
What can I say that has not been said already? So many rave reviews and gushing stories that I just have to go out and read it. Ironically, I actually read this weeks ago and was in a reviewing slump.

Apparently, I'm not all that fascinated by the story. I know.. a shocker right?

Dislikes
The pace of the story. The beginning is a bit slow. I think the action only picked up on page 83 when Juliette decides to rebel against the scary Warner. I think he's psychotic. A cute psycho but still a psycho.

Likes
The romance between Juliette and Adam is sweet but way too predictable. I love how they both fell in love with each other even when they were little kids and kept that feeling a secret all this time.

This is kind of hard for me to say. I was actually expecting something along the lines of Divergent or Hunger Games but got a lot of kissing and hugging instead. The romance actually dominated  the book and the action parts are very few. Maybe the next book will be much better. After all, now that we actually know what kind of super hero Juliette is maybe we get to find out Adam or Warner's powers. Well if they do have one.


Verdict: 3 stars.

13 comments:

  1. I did like this one more than you did, but I wasn't WOW'ed. I guess my expectations were too high. Do you plan on reading the sequel?

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  2. Sometime we got to much expectation! I'm actually reading the demon lover by Juliet Dark and it wasn't what I expected but still, the story is good enough! Shatter me is on my TBR pile since it's release!

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  3. You guys are so right! I might read the next book just so I can find out more about Warner. Crazy right?

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  4. Ok, so this one is a first ;) Haven't read it, but keep reading great reviews, so I appreciate your honesty. I don't always like too much romance in YA (only if it's YA contemporary romance, of course), so now I wonder if I'll like it as much as everyone, because there've been quite a number of YA books that everyone fell in love with, but I didn't. I hope this time that won't be the case, but I guess I'll have to read it & see ;)

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  5. LOL I had the exact same reaction to Warner xD I don't think we know enough about him to label him as a lovable psycho. So right now, he's just a psycho lol.

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  6. First off I am excited that there will be a second book to this :) Secondly, while I did like this more than you I agree that the romance did overpower the potential for the suspenseful, exciting part of the book! The book actually started more exciting than it ended for me...I liked the intenseness of the start of the book and the unique way she narrarates...but by the end it seems as though the author got lost in the love story and forgot about the real raw emotions...but I will absolutely read the second book because I do love the story!

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  7. I didn't mind the romance aspect of Shatter Me. I think the thing I liked most about this book was the way that it was written. I really liked the writing style used in this book because it was so different and made Juliette seem more real.
    Thanks for the honest review!

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  8. Thanks for the review. Sounds like a good book. I don't mind a little slowness if the story is good. *goes to my TBR list*

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  9. Ah, I was really looking forward to this one, but if it's full of lovey dovey snuggling and very little action, I'm not sure if it will be my cup of tea. Thanks for the honest review on this one, though! Good to get some perspective that's not just gushing about how great the book is.

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  10. This book is my next on my TBR list, I've heard a lots of great things about it. Thank you for the review. Hope I'm gonna like the book :)

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  11. I have high expectations on this. But I prefer books with unexpected twists and I expect this book to be full of action. Anyway, I'll still give it a try!

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  12. I really loved the book. Maybe your expectations were just too high and standards were not met. Well, everyone has different opinions so it's fine. :)

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  13. I loved Warner! He was the best villain I've read in a long time. Yes, he was psycho, but at least he wasn't a card-board cutout bad guy. I wanted him to turn out OK. Is there any hope for his redemption?

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