Shatter Me
Tahereh Mafi
Length: 338 Pages
Published: November 2011 (Harper)
Rating: 
I have a curse
I have a gift
I am a monster
I’m more than human
My touch is lethal
My touch is power
I am their weapon
I will fight backJuliette 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.
When I was trolling around looking for recommended books within the YA and NA genres I kept coming across the Shatter Me series by Tahereh Mafi. With the anticipated release of the fifth installment, Defy Me, in April 2019, I decided I may as well give the first book a try.
We meet the protagonist, Juliette, in an isolation cell within a psychiatric “hospital.” Truly the description paints a picture of a prison, with her spending the better part of a year in isolation with no contact from the jailers. Juliette is unable to have skin to skin contact with other people without draining their life force and occasionally killing them. After an incident that results in a death, Juliette is taken from her family and incarcerated. Initially, I really didn’t like Juliette. The repeated complaints about her parents abandoning her got old quickly.
The writing style fast paced and unique. The use of repetition lending an almost poetic quality to the story that I really appreciated as it highlighted Juliette’s mental stability or lack thereof due to the extended isolation. It really was a beautiful way to illustrate her state of mind for the reader and as the book continues we see her start to reduce the repetition as she stabilizes. Even though I didn’t like Juliette at the beginning, I was still able to relate to her profound loneliness through the descriptions. In fact, I think that if I isolated the beginning part of the book it would make for an excellent SOI piece for speech and debate. Eventually, as Juliette’s confidence grew it was easier to root for her. I wish the pace had been slowed just a bit to show more of her time with Warner. Shatter me was lacking in a significant development for the characters and I suspect it is because this book exists as a vehicle to set up this dystopian world and introduce the characters that will play a part in the series which makes the book description misleading.
That said, I loved the development of Warner’s character, even though it was limited to a small time period, and I find myself wanting to root for him even though he is on the opposite side. I preferred his complexity compared to Adam and his puppy dog infatuation that started in kindergarten and he has harbored for all these years (not quite accurate but I’m allowed to be dramatic). Adam was written to be a flawless partner for Juliette and that makes him seem unrealistic and just irritated me.
**WARNING: Complaints with Spoilers**
I would have liked to see more interactions between Adam and Juliette to truly build up the relationship rather than only their shared history. As it is, this is a form of hero worship for Adam. Oh, she was so nice even to people that were bullied and used her and I wish I could be like that! Juliette likes him because Adam was the only one “nice” to her (left her alone) and has the ability to touch her. It just seems like a ripe situation to become a very unhealthy relationship. Not that a relationship with Warner would be much healthier at this point in time.
Also, that bird tattoo and dream link irritated me beyond belief. Juliette and her confession to Adam afterward had me sitting there like:
It was not necessary and just reinforced Adam’s perfection which I’ve already harped on. Stepping off this soapbox now…
Also, that misleading book description, Juliette doesn’ technically choose to be a warrior instead of a weapon. She runs from being a weapon and “joins with the rebels” simply because there are others with abilities that she may be able to relate and befriend and to a chronically lonely person this is a SIGNIFICANT driving force behind her decision. That doesn’t make her a warrior. She hasn’t decided to join their efforts to crush the Reestablishment.
**End of Spoiler**
I really enjoyed this book and some parts of it contained some truly beautiful writing. The plot holes and character issues that I identified kept it from being a 5-glass book and almost pushed it into 3 stars but even still, I definitely plan on reading the next book and the rest of the series. I’m excited to see some character development and meet the rest of the rebel cast in the next book.