Review: Poetic Passages in Shatter Me Make For Powerful Read

Juliette’s touch can kill. That’s why she was locked up in a cell after she accidentally killed a toddler. But when she is released, she is caught up in a society that wants to turn her into a weapon in a war against their enemies. This is the premise of the first book in the Shatter Me series by Tahereh Mafi. Juliette fights for what she wants: freedom, love, and answers.

I absolutely loved this book!! I knew immediately that it was going to be my favorite series! I devoured it in one day, and I can’t wait to read the rest. I know many other readers had a problem with the similes and metaphors in the story, but I really liked them and thought they were very creative. Tahereh Mafi’s writing style is really poetic and it was cool how she used strikethroughs to symbolize Juliette’s chaotic mind. My favorite passage from the book was:

“I spent my life folded between the pages of books.
In the absence of human relationships I formed bonds with paper characters. I lived love and loss through stories threaded in history; I experienced adolescence by association. My world is one interwoven web of words, stringing limb to limb, bone to sinew, thoughts and images all together. I am a being comprised of letters, a character created by sentences, a figment of imagination formed through fiction.”

I loved this passage because what she is saying is so true – it is so easy to live vicariously through books, and words are so powerful that they can consume and change you.

The author was so good at conveying Juliette’s emotion through text. I knew when she was in distress, when she was happy, and when she was annoyed without Mafi blatantly stating the fact. Also, I love the relationships in this story!! I can’t wait to see how the characters and their relationships develop. Every character is so entertaining, I just loved everyone!

This book may be a dystopian romance, but it is still relatable. At the beginning of the book, Juliette lacks self-confidence and sees herself as someone broken. But, as the book progresses, she starts to realize that she is not the broken one, it is the world she lives in that is. She starts to love and accept herself for who she is. Juliette even found love in a soldier that she used to know before the Reestablishment took over.

I recommend this book to everyone! It is an emotional rollercoaster. I see myself in Juliette, we would be great friends.

Four out of four roses!