Review of Shatter Me

My review of Shatter Me by Tahereh Mafi is based on an ARC that I won in a giveaway through the publishing house. The following review is my honest opinion of the work.

Goodreads 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.

In this electrifying debut, Tahereh Mafi presents a world as riveting as The Hunger Games and a superhero story as thrilling as The X-Men. Full of pulse-pounding romance, intoxicating villainy, and high-stakes choices, Shatter Me is a fresh and original dystopian novel—with a paranormal twist—that will leave readers anxiously awaiting its sequel."

I'll admit that Shatter Me and I got off to a rough start; I loved the cover, the premise definitely had me hooked but the writing took a chapter or so to get used to. Before you hit the back button let me just say I don't mean that Tahereh Mafi's writing is bad by any stretch of the imagination, rather that it is so poetic I was kind of in awe. I don't mean poetic in the manner of novels told through prose rather her writing simply read like poetry, that beautiful elevated language that captivates. I found myself rereading certain passages multiple times trying to glean everything from them that I possibly could.

Juliette was an ideal main character and when I say ideal I don't mean that she was a Mary Sue or any form of absolute perfection, rather she was just an amazing girl to read about. I loved reading as she worked through her isolation issues, came to terms with her guilt [somewhat], fell in love all over again and works towards finding a way to make her power her own rather than someone elses'. Juliette is the type of heroine that you can believe can conquer the world [and I don't mean that in the whole evil mastermind kind of way] and make it a better place...with a little help from her friends.

I know most reviews are going to have paragraphs upon paragraphs about the gloriousness that is Adam, and I have to admit he is absolutely DREAMY, so instead I'm going to go after the guy who stole my heart within seconds of meeting him. And no, I'm not talking about Adam. I'm talking about the hotness that is Kenji. That's right, Tahereh Mafi is such an AMAZING authoress that she got me to fall just as much in love with a secondary character as the main male. And OHEMGEE I love me some Kenji. Please give me more? Please? Maybe his own novella?!

For those of you who prefer your dystopians with action galore, Shatter Me is the novel for you. Tahereh Mafi rarely gives you a moment where you can sit back and relax, even if things aren't going to heck in a hand-basket around you you're wondering when they're about to. There is no such thing as relaxing; Shatter Me is one of those novels that keeps you on the edge of your seat right along with the main characters and OHEMGEE does it do an amazing job of it.

A lot of other reviewers, even the goodreads summary, compares this novel to X-Men which I'll admit I haven't really watched aside from a few stray episodes of the cartoon here and there. If there is any truth in that comparison what so ever I'm going to have to start watching NOW. I'm giving Shatter Me by Tahereh Mafi a five out of five stars review. I can see why this novel ended up topping so many of my fellow blogger's top ten of 2011 lists, Shatter Me is a beautifully written dystopian well worth all of the praise that it received. I cannot wait to read more of Tahereh Mafi's writing and look forward to getting another glimpse into the world of Shatter Me.