Shatter Me (Shatter Me, #1)

 

Author: Tahereh Mafi
Series: Shatter Me
Pages: 338
Challenge: Goodreads Challenge 2014, 2014 Book Bingo Challenge
Genre: Dystopian, Sci-Fi, Post-Apocalyptic
Acquired: Own
Rating: ★★★★★

*****

Goodreads Summary:

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 back

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.

  *****

 My Thoughts:

Shatter Me follows a girl named Julliette whose world completely fell apart when she found out that her touch kills whoever she comes in contact with. Soon the government finds out about her and plans to use her lethal powers to put down the resistance and intimidate anyone who tries to interfere with their plans. But things go awry when Julliette doesn't plan to cooperate.

I really like Julliette's character and her spunk and will to not comply with the plans of Warner, a young male who is charge of a brutal army of soldiers. I liked that she remained true to herself and grew into herself as a character throughout the novel. Written in Julliette's POV, the novel takes you through her struggle with accepting herself and her abilities as well as her struggle with trying to escape from those that want to use her for power and destruction.

The characters and their problems were definitely believable in the regard that they dealt with real life issues including war and how it affects families and dealing with family issues because of war. All the while, the story stayed action packed and full of interesting plot twists through it all.

I was pleasantly surprised by this book as well as T. Mafi's writing especially the mark outs, they were new and interesting. I can definitely say that this book lived up to all the hype it rightfully deserved. My favorite scene was definitely Julliette's escape and her realization of that moment afterwards. What I liked most was Julliette's determination to escape and leave her prison and also even though it was disturbing and twisted, Warner's persistence. I think he made the story scary in the sense of what he was willing to do and did do, it made the story even more interesting.

What I liked least was one of the last scenes at Adam's house. The ending was very action packed and full of  chair-gripping suspense...that is all I will say so that I do not spoil anything for anyone, but I loved it! Now on to my ratings. Cover appeal for the copy that I have, which is the original cover gets a 5/10. I prefer the "eye" covers SO much more since most importantly they all MATCH! But I got my copy for only $4 so I'm not complaining but will more than likely buy it again with the new covers so that when I buy the rest of the trilogy they will all match beautifully. New covers definitely get 8/10 from me. Also my actual rating of the book was a 5/5 of course! I loved it and really hope to continue the series very soon when I purchase the others.

*****