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Don’t touch Juliette. Bad things happen when you touch her, things so bad that she’s thrown into prison, alone in a cell until the day that Adam arrives: Adam, who looks shockingly familiar. Adam, who is going to play a big part in her story as she suddenly has to choose if and how to use her own strangely X-Men-type powers. In a world we’ve destroyed, where survival depends on listening to orders and not making any waves, Juliette has to find someone she can trust before she doesn’t have any options left.
So. I didn’t love it. The plot is interesting enough that I read it in a day (although at the end I had a slap-the-forehead-COME ON kind of moment), but the writing style pretty much drove me crazy. The author does all these “strikeouts” that are supposed to tell us Juliette’s inner thoughts, but WOW, I was not a fan. There are a lot of textual things that just grated on me — the repetition of thoughts, the CONSTANT, and I mean every page, discussion about some point of Juliette’s body — her heart, her lungs, her mind, how overwhelmed it is or how terrified or pounding with love — and maybe the author is trying to point out that because Juliette has never touched people she’s super body-aware, but it got really annoying.
For a young adult novel, it is steamy, for sure. I liked the romantic plot line, in that the development of the relationship felt authentic and I liked Adam as a sensitive bad guy/good guy, but Juliette … The juxtaposition of her amazing strengths and her serious weaknesses just fell flat for me most of the time. Surely there will be a sequel, and I’m actually on the fence as to whether or not I’ll try it. The ending seemed as if the author was shoving too much at readers in a super-short time so that the sequel could start where she wanted it to. We’ll see.
Rated: High for 20+ uses of moderate language and 30+ uses of mild language plus several steamy making-out scenes and lots of people wanting there to be sex.
Shatter Me is one of those books that I couldn’t wait to read. Not only has it been incredibly hyped online, but it has an incredibly compelling concept and a great blurb that screams “Read me!” Being touted as the Hunger Games meets X-men, Shatter Me boasted some of the most unique marketing I’ve ever seen for a YA novel, despite its unknown author and not-incredibly-compelling cover. Being the dystopian nerd that I am, I was completely pulled in by the incredible blurb and was beyond exciting for this title.
Shatter Me was strangely difficult for me to get into. First, Juliette spends much of the first half of the novel being completely obedient to the horrible regime that locked her away and seemed completely resigned to her terrible fate. It also doesn’t help that she spends far too much time feeling sorry for herself, calling herself a “monster” and dripping with angst. There were times I wanted to tell her to just get over it. Thankfully, throughout the novel Juliette’s adventures help to meld her into a stronger, better person who is more confident and empowered.
I’ve also read some interesting reviews that have discussed how much they loved the writing style in Shatter Me. I’m not sure I like it -in fact, I was torn for much of the book. Most of the writing is done in stream-of-conscious style that really gets into Juliette’s head, but left me out of breath by the end of most sentences. It didn’t seem that polished or crisp to me. Again, this did get better as the book went on, but I wouldn’t rave about the writing style here. However, some sentences here were amazing emotional gems that really were beautiful.
I wouldn’t call Shatter Me the best dystopian novel I’ve read this year, but it’s still worth reading. It’s certainly something different in the genre with a unique style approach that’s unlike anything else I’ve ever read. Recommended for fans of dystopian romance.
Have a lovely day,
Samantha