Shatter Me by Tahereh Mafi

The world is falling apart, the sky is the wrong colour, food is scarce and birds don't fly anymore. And to make it worse for our main character, Juliette, her touch is fatal. She has been tested on and sent to an asylum. Juliette has been locked up for two hundred sixty-four days with no human contact. Then she is taken by The Reestablishment, the new government that says that the can fix the world. The Reestablishment has plans to use Juliette as a weapon, but Juliette doesn't want to be used as a weapon, she doesn't want to hurt anybody. Will Juliette find the strength to fight, to have a future worth living?

Rate: 3.5 stars

This book was recommended to me by a friend of mine, so I thought I would try it out. And I've got to say it was pretty good. Some people absolutely hated this book, and others absolutely loved it. I'm in the middle for this one. I would recommend this to any dystopian fan, although there is some romance, so if you aren't a huge fan of that, you might not enjoy it as much.

SPOILERS ahead.

This book had a unique writing style to it, it was very poetic and Tahereh Mafi used many similes and metaphors. Plus she used cross outs while writing. I actually liked these, as we could see what Juliette was really thinking. The one thing that really annoyed me about the writing was how the author used numbers instead of words, like this: "My eyes open to 2 eyes 2 lips 2 ears 2 eyebrows." Also, the lack of comas, and sometimes Juliette would just repeat things over and over again. But, the unique writing style made for an interesting read.

Our main character, Juliette, was a bit mentally unstable, with good reasons, though. She was bullied as a kid, her parents ignored her, she was tested on, she accidentally killed a young child she was trying to help, and she was locked up in an asylum with no human contact. So it is understandable why she is like this, but I also found Juliette to be a bit weak. Which is actually quite funny considering she is able to break through concrete walls and kill people with a touch of a hand. So, she isn't my favourite character I've ever read about, but she definitely isn't my least favourite.

Now, there was also Warner, who seemed psychotic or mentally disturbed, he was actually kind of creepy. And then there is Adam, the love interest in this story. I liked how he and Juliette had know each other since they were little, I liked their backstory. But, isn't it weird how Juliette can touch both of them? I thought maybe she can only touch the people that love her, but I'm not a hundred percent sure.

Things really started to pick up in Shatter Me when Juliette and Adam ran away from the Reestablishment. Or really when Kenji, James, Adam and Juliette were about to leave for 'super-safe place' (Omega Point) that Kenji was talking about. I never thought Adam was going to die, even when he was shot, you could just tell. And I was really glad that Juliette shot Warner to get away from him. I wish she would have killed him though, he'll just cause trouble in the future.

I was not expecting Omega Point to be this secret headquarters for people with abilities. I thought Juliette was going to be the only one. I was really surprised to find out that Kenji could become invisible. It will be interesting to see how this plays into the next book.