Hello bookworms! I recently finished ‘Shatter me’ and I am extremely disappointed that I hadn’t read it sooner. IT WAS AMAZING!!!

Genre: Young Adult dystopian thriller

Pages: 338

Publisher: Harper Teen

Overall rating: 4,25 stars

Goodreads synopsis:

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 colour.

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.

My review (spoiler free)

Shatter me was one of those books that had been on my TBR for so long, even before I managed to get copies of the first 4 books at Exclusive Books.

The book starts with the main character, Juliette, locked in an asylum. What made me immediately like the book was the detailed descriptions and use of metaphors. It wasn’t just descriptions of the setting, but of Juliette’s emotions. There were, however, many times when metaphors were overused to a point of not making much sense. Or sense at all. “They filled our world with weapons aimed at our foreheads and smiled as they shot sixteen candles right through our future.” Anyone willing to explain what exactly this means? The strikethroughs and repetition in the book decreased as the book progressed, due to Juliette’s mental health improving, which I thought was an interesting technique.

The setting of the book is a dystopian world that I assume is a reference to our future if we continue carelessly wasting resources. The Reestablishment is in charge of… basically saving the world. The book included lots of world building, written in a way that sounded like a lesson to readers.

As far as the storyline goes, it was a pretty standard plot for most dystopian novels. The story was very fast-paced which made me enjoy reading it even more. I thought that the characters were well written, each of them having a very distinct personality. I’m used to reading books with multiple perspectives, so even though Juliette’s emotions were clear, it was hard for me to tell what anyone else was thinking, which led to me only trusting Juliette and not feeling a particular attachment to any of the other characters.

By this point, you are probably wondering why I gave the book such a high rating. Regardless of all the things in the book that I disliked, I really just enjoyed reading the book! I genuinely loved the book, even with all its flaws. It kept me interested and considering the fact that it is a series, it has lots of potential to grow as a story. If you look past the writing (which personally didn’t really bother me), it contained everything I look for in a series. I will definitely be continuing with the series.

The book itself (writing, characters etc.): 3,75 stars

My enjoyment: 4,75 stars

Discussion (spoilers ahead)

Okay, so onto the spoiler section. So firstly characters: I liked Juliette. Unlike many reviews, I didn’t think she was annoying. She made good decisions, and, like a normal person, she had flaws. Initially I liked Adam too. He had a good backstory and I was glad that him and Juliette knew each other from childhood. However, I didn’t really trust Adam. I spent the entire book wondering when he was going to betray her or reveal that he was acting the entire time. I’m not sure if it was just me, but I didn’t LOVE Adam as a character. Near the end of the end of the book, when he possibly died, I didn’t feel sad about it. He had more of a personality when he was in the asylum with Juliette, and I understand he was meant to be a “disciplined soldier”, but other than him being super protective over Juliette and a bit of his backstory, I didn’t know much about him.

Another thing that I wasn’t sure if I liked or not, was Adam and Juliette. They were in the same school, and had never spoken before, but she was in love with him. Not sure if it’s just me being obsessed with the hate to love trope, but I wasn’t sure if the “I’ve been in love with you since we were kids” thing worked or not. It didn’t help that he didn’t show any sign of recognition and was just emotionless around Warner. If he was in love with her forever, surely he would’ve at least flinched when she was being hurt?

As the antagonist in the book, I liked Warner. He was never really particularly rude to Juliette, except for the threats. I thought he was an interesting character, and I liked the addition of him being “obsessed” with Juliette and her ability. Another character I liked was Kenji. I thought he was one of the only characters who really had sense of humour.

Like I mentioned before, the plot was standard of a dystopian novel. A girl with abilities escapes and joins a rebel group to try overthrow the government (who doesn’t care about the population). This storyline in particular reminded me of Red Queen. (SPOILER: A girl with strange abilities working for the enemy until she escapes with rebels and finds out there are others like her?) So, if you enjoyed this, you will love Red Queen.

Overall I enjoyed ‘Shatter me’ and can’t wait to read the sequel!!

Comment what you thought about ‘Shatter me’, if you read it!

Until next time

Jenna

xoxo