Tuesday, July 22, 2014

"Shatter Me" Series by Tahereh Mafi



I just finished this series and am still trying to understand what I think about it. If you are contemplating "to read or not to read", I would definitely say "read". Tahereh Mafi is an amazing writer. She is the queen of simile. So you will definitely enjoy the style, it is fresh and unusual. Her prose is very poetic. She crosses things out, she ignores punctuation rules and writes out sentences in a column for emphasis.

What drew me to the book was the promise of a strong female character with an awesome superpower. Ever since I finished The Destroyer Trilogy by DelSheree Gladden, I've been trying to find a book with a similar feel. The series consists of three full-length novels and two novellas. The novels are written from the female lead's point of view (Juliette), and the novellas are written from the point of view of the two main male characters: Warner and Adam. We find Juliette locked up in an asylum because she is considered to be a danger to society: she kills people simply by touching them. The reader spends a lot of time in Juliette's head as she deals with her fears, insecurities and yearnings. Without giving too much away, I will say that Juliette goes through an amazing character transformation in this series. If you like love triangles, this book is definitely for you. There is a lot of romance and an amazing love triangle is set up early on in the story. I think this book is marketed as young adult fiction, however, I must say that some scenes in the last book are a bit racy for YA audience. I'd say it is better suited for 17-18 and older, and definitely not for younger readers. Juliette (in my opinion) is way too eager to jump into a physical relationship and I am not sure this sends the right message to younger readers.

Overall, the narrative moves along at a nice pace, the characters are interesting and well fleshed out and the trilogy has a very strong conclusion. I would definitely bring these books along to the beach or on a long airplane ride.

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