Shatter Me by Tahereh Mafi
Rating: **** Suggested Age: 13
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.” (Summary found on Goodreads).
Tahereh Mafi’s Shatter Me was very unique. I wouldn’t ordinarily pick it up in a store, so I was glad a salesperson recommended it to me. The plot idea is one I have never read before and includes a main character whose touch is fatal. Mafi also wrote differently than I was used to, using crossed out words to show the main character’s conflicted personality. At times the crossed out phrases or words were used to add interest (like having a whole page filled with the same phrased repeated and scratched out every time), but other times it didn’t make logical sense and I found myself racking my brain for a reason behind it. I didn’t think it was written that well, but as Mafi’s first published novel, it wasn’t terrible. I kept reading because of the interesting plot and intriguing characters. I enjoyed the ever-moving plot because recently I read a book where the plot hardly moved in the first one hundred pages (more on that in the next review) and that was very boring. Shatter Me was a little violent, but nothing I (or anyone else my age) couldn’t handle. It also had some romance, but there are hardly any young adult novels where the protagonist doesn’t have a love interest anymore. I recommend this book for fans of other dystopian novels or are just looking for something new.
-Book Hugger
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