Shatter Me by Tahere Mafi
Hello Books Lovers,
if any of you were waiting for this review when I announced it months ago, I apologize for never posting it. The truth is that I was more than sure I had written it and put it online and consequently I never checked. Just a few days ago, while writing the review of Unravel me, I actually realized that I never gave you my review of Tahere Mafi’s Shatter Me.
Again, if you have been waiting for it, I apologize, but there is a positive side and it is that the review of the second volume will come soon after this one :). As you may have understood then, today we will talk about Shatter Me. On tiktok I had also posted a video reaction while reading and if you don’t follow me on that social network yet, I post two videos every day, stop by.
Going back to today’s review, this is not affiliated with Rizzoli, it was a reading I wanted to do because very soon, in May, Fanucci will publish the complete second trilogy of this dystopian series written by Tahere Mafi. So … about shatter me, I didn’t like it as much as I wanted. Compared to my expectations, also taking into account what many readers have said over the years, it was disappointing.
The beginning was very slow, the writing style very particular. Mafi uses many abstract ways to describe the scenes and points of view of the protagonist Juliette. The narration is in the first person from her point of view and is almost written like a diary, in fact many you will find deleted sentences – detail in my opinion very nice.
It wasn’t until Warner, the villain of the situation, came on the scene that things started to get slightly more interesting. After all, he is the character everyone talks about when this book is mentioned. Let’s say that I started reading out of curiosity to know him XD
Let’s say the writing style improves only in the second book, but the nuances of the plot soon become more interesting and towards page 200 the first elements of the romance that characterizes this trilogy begin to be seen, moreover it is from this point on that more is discovered about Juliette’s powers, only after she was released from the cell where she was locked up for 17 years.
This book is a dystopian because it is set in a future world where wars have destroyed everything, and these same wars have also led some children being born with special abilities, but these abilities are seen as threats by the government that kills anyone who’s not “human”.
Juliette made a mistake as a child, she wanted to help a child, but she couldn’t control her abilities and ended up hurting him. She paid the consequences by ending up locked up for her entire life until Warner, with the help of Adam, a soldier of his, got her out. But Warner is the villain of the situation because he wants to use Juliette. He is only 19 and is already in charge of a division of the government thanks to his father.
But Adam turns out not to be the obedient soldier that Warner thought and with Kenji’s help they also escape, not without first facing many difficulties, being tortured, making interesting discoveries and risking everything.
At the end of the reading, the story itself was not too bad, for this reason I will continue reading because I like the world created by the author, I like Juliette’s story and above all I like Warner. I would have liked a less confusing narrative, but you can’t have everything in life, as I said, however, the second improves a lot.
What struck me as really absurd was the end of the book. After things got interesting, they became absurd again. For a moment I felt like I was reading an X-men fan fiction, if you have read it tell me if, in the end, when they arrive at the shelter, you have thought the same thing or not?
In the meantime, I feed my eyes of fan arts. There aren’t many, but the ones that are there are really beautiful.
