Critical Review: "Shatter Me" by Tahereh Mafi

Quick Summary

Type: Novel, book 1 of Shatter Me series

Genre: Romance, young adult, science fiction, fantasy

Back Cover: "One touch is all it takes. One touch, and Julette Ferrars can leave a fully grown man gasping for air. One touch, and she can kill. No one knows why Juliette has such incredible power. It feels like a curse, a burden that one person alone could never bear. But The Reestablishment sees it as a gift, sees her as an opportunity. An opportunity for a deadly weapon. Juliette has never fought for herself before. Butt when she's reunited with the one person who ever cared about her, she finds a strength she never knew she had." Read Time: 2 days Rating: 1.5 stars

Review

Right off the bat, I hate the writing style. It feels like it's supposed to be a stream of consciousness style, like Juliette (the narrator) is writing in the little notebook that's so important to her but abandoned halfway through the book. (Okay, granted, she had to give it up, but she doesn't mourn its loss, so...) But the stream of consciousness style is abandoned as soon as there's any need for dialogue. And so while I generally dislike a stream of consciousness style, I hate the inconsistency.

Also, this is a small gripe, but the author is inconsistent about numbers - sometimes they're written out, sometimes they're not. It's very frustrating.

Maybe I could get past the writing style if the story weren't so stupid. That's really the only way I can describe it. My main issue is with the romance in this story, but I'll start with some of the smaller issues in the first two-thirds of the story (I'll talk about the last third after I read it).

First, there's the issue of Juliette's circumstances. We enter the story just as she's being recruited to be a weapon for the Reestablishment. Until now, she's been stuck in jails and asylums and horribly mistreated because of her gift/curse. All of a sudden, the Reestablishment expects her to join them? I understand that Warren is only nineteen and this was his idea, but frankly with a gift/curse like this, Juliette should have been treated like a queen and brainwashed for the three years she was stuck in jails and asylums. If they had manipulated her and treated her well while she was vulnerable and impressionable, she would probably be willing to help them. Instead, she's just resentful of them and hates everything they represent.

Now onto the romance. The romantic interests are established very quickly, which isn't necessarily bad, but...let's just say I have problems with both love interests.

Yes, that's right. There's a love triangle that doesn't even really work (unless a whole bunch of character development that happens in later books) because one of the love interests is clearly better.

The love interests are Adam and Warner. Adam is a soldier who went to school with Juliette. Warner is the son of the leader of the Reestablishment. Both characters (naturally) fall in love with Juliette as soon as they meet her. Adam is clearly the good (and should be the only) option here, but the reason you know they're both love interests is because they both are immune to Juliette's touch (of course they are - how else would they be able to hook up with her?) And while I commend Warner on his commitment to consent - he wants her to choose him - the author paints him as despicable in every other way that it's really, really hard to buy in to that love triangle idea. Warner should be a much more morally gray character if I'm to believe he's a viable love interest.

As for Adam, he's a little possessive kind of immediately. He's also been in love with Juliette (let's be real - the idea of Juliette) for years, all without ever speaking to her once. He's insanely devoted to this girl he doesn't really know. Not to mention, they're running for their lives (having only really known each other for a few weeks and only talking in brief exchanges since they're always watched) and he's calling her his girlfriend and they're exchanging 'I love yous'.

Also, it was so obvious that Adam was the main love interest that when he 'betrayed' her, I didn't believe it for a second. I didn't feel betrayed at all (and believe me, right now I know exactly what that feels like). Frankly, through about 60% of this novel, I haven't felt anything of what Juliette has felt. And although she lives in a bleak, authoritarian dystopia, I don't care because Juliette doesn't care. Or she does, but her care feels shallow. Performative. Maybe I'll start caring more in the last third of the book, but for some reason I doubt it.

Then Adam and Juliette escape. They're introduced to a whole bunch of other characters, including Adam's brother, and a previously briefly mentioned character named Kenji. Kenji's introduction bothered me because he lies about a whole bunch of important things, like his association with the rebels. If he hadn't lied about these things, they would probably have saved a lot of time. In fact, I think the reason he did lie was so the author could have the Reestablishment catch up with them and get that 'sexy' scene between Juliette and Warner into the story.

Once we reach the rebels, Juliette freaks out - again, something that wouldn't have happened if Kenji hadn't lied about stupid things. Once she's calmed down, she's introduced to Castle, a character who speaks in long exposition dumps that would be fine if he kept the exposition dumps to things that couldn't have been introduced earlier. But explaining that "The Reestablishment has been trying to pinpoint our whereabouts for years" is completely unnecessary because this has been implied since Juliette was introduced to Warner.

Another writing gripe - sometimes the same character will speak with contractions, then without, and not with the purpose of adding emphasis. Very annoying.

At this point, the story is getting very, very repetitive. Over and over, the same points are getting hammered in. For example, I think there's a mention of how much Warner wants Juliette once every other chapter. Like, I get it. He wants her, Adam wants her, Castle wants her, Kenji wants her, they all want her for whatever reason. I get it. I don't need the author to keep telling me.

The climax, while problematic, was at least interesting. And then they reach the rebel compound and I lost all interest again. And then, following an exposition dump about the rebels and some inconsequential meetings with other people, the story ended. That's it. There was an epilogue in which Juliette tries on some fancy suit, and that's how Shatter Me ends. It was so anti-climactic, so boring that I just couldn't feel anything but frustration. I wasn't expecting a resolution to the whole story, of course not. But I was expecting something else a little more exciting than the running away of the climax (which while interesting did feel rushed, not in a good way) and more satisfying than trying on a fancy suit. Point is, the ending was frustrating.

Unless you count the attached novella: Destroy Me, from Warner's point of view.

Quick Summary

Type: Novella, book 1.5 of Shatter Me series

Genre: Romance, young adult, science fiction, fantasy

Back Cover: "Set after Tahereh Mafi's Shatter Me and before Unravel Me, Destroy Me is a novella told from the perspective of Warner, the ruthless leader of Sector 45. Even though Juliette shot him in order to escape, Warner can't stop thinking about her - and he'll do anything to get her back. But when the Supreme Commander of The Reestablishment arrives, he has much different plans for Juliette. Plans Warner cannot allow."

Read Time: 1 day

Rating: 1.75 stars

Review

I still didn't like this. But I gave it .25 more stars because it works so well as a proper ending for Shatter Me. If I had read it alone, I don't think I would have rated it nearly as high. The author is only using this novella as a way to make Warner a much more sympathetic character, trying to turn him into a viable love interest. We learn that he's motivated by compassion for civilians. He loves (is obsessed with) Juliette. He's been abused. But it feels forced.

If these aspects of Warner's personality had been weaved in to the first book, I would be much more willing to consider him a love interest. I would need to see the morally gray aspects of his personality from Juliette's point of view. But instead, I get his point of view away from Juliette which, again, is a way that the author is trying to manipulate me into considering Warner a third point of the love triangle. The reason this doesn't work is that so far, Juliette hasn't seen any of this so Juliette doesn't consider him a love interest.

Also, I didn't like the diary passages. They didn't add any insight into Juliette as a person, except for revealing to Warner that she had been abused as a child. That fact, however, should have been in her records. The kind of abuse she suffered is not abuse that's easy to hide from the outside world. The diary entries could have been much more effectively used than they were.

And again, I hated - in both this one and the last one - how obsessed both men (Adam and Warner) were with this girl that neither really knows. It's creepy.

In the end, I am actually tempted to read the next books just so I have something to rant about. I might also watch a YouTube review with spoilers to save some time. The argument in favor of that second idea is that even though these books are fast paced, they felt like they took forever to get through.

The early 2010s were the years of dystopian love triangle YAs, and this author certainly took advantage. Good for her. But by God are these books tedious.