Teherah Mafi: Shatter Me (Shatter Me #1) | Lara
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.
I read this book more than a week ago, and on first
impression I would have given it 2 stars, but the more I thought about it the more
I realized there wasn’t anything I liked about it.
This book caught my attention recently, as I saw it was
pretty popular and not too long, I decided to give it a shot. I saw a lot of
negative reviews, pointing out things I didn’t like myself, but there were also
a lot of people who loved it and recommended it a lot so I went to it pretty
much without any expectation. The truth was I hated it, really.
Biggest problem about this book is it’s writing style. I
knew it was supposed to be told from a perspective of MC writing in her
notebook, but it was sooo terrible and annoying. Sentences were chopped, thoughts half-finished.
I get that author was trying to create an impression Juliette was half mad, but
constantly repeating same thoughts and crossing-out every third sentence made
me mad myself. Every third word was repeated several times and I am sure book
would be half its size if it weren’t for that. I get it, you are crazy, and I
can read, so it is utterly unnecessary to mention how scared scared scared
scared you are or how much you want to die die die die.
This is probably just me because I haven’t seen any negative
comments about this, but I had this huge problem with numbers in writing. Like,
I don’t know what kind of impression author was trying to make with that, but I
find it completely unnecessary to mention the exact number of steps you took
from door to door (instead of 6 steps just write few steps or something).
“They shift as one, 5 steps backward, 5 steps forward, 5
steps standing in place.”
“His face is 10,000 possibilities staring straight trough
me.”
(what is wrong with “thousand possibilities” or “infinite amount of possibilities”?)
“After inhaling 594 times Adam…” or “1,320 seconds walk into
the room before he does”.
I still can't believe these are actual quotes from a book.
Writing style was bad, but not as bad as purple prose author
decided to use. First of all, you can’t write half of your sentences like a
12-year-old on Wattpad and rest of them in some bad attempt of heart-breaking
metaphors. I, personally, have NOTHING against purple prose if metaphors
actually make sense and are not over exaggerated.
“He smiles with teeth so white it looks like snow falling on
the chocolate valleys of his face.”
“I wonder about how they’re always falling down, tripping
over their own feet, breaking their legs and forgetting their parachutes as
they tumble right out of the sky toward an uncertain end.”
Another huge problem I had with Shatter Me was its plot. I promise
you I am not overstating, in more than 300 pages NOTHING HAPPENS. She is in one
place most of the time, whining about how sad and lonely she is and how much
she hates Warner. There is two chapters of action and zero plot twists, which
successfully makes this book the most boring one I have read entire year.
It was supposed to be dystopian novel, but there isn’t much
we know about this futuristic Earth or mysterious government that ruined
everything. Let’s be honest. This is a bad romance novel. Most of the plot is
centered around Juliette and Adam and, to be honest, I have a feeling Juliette
is going to end up with Warner in the end. Not that I particularly care.
World building was interesting and, in the beginning, I had
a really good feeling about people with special abilities fighting The
Reestablishment, but so many things were left undeveloped and untold.
I hated Juliette’s character, because she is, like the rest
of the book, boring. She is super bland and I don’t stand Mary Sue’s especially
if they are weak and whiny. Besides being beautiful (surprise, but she doesn’t
know it), nice, wanted by every boy/man/creature in universe and flawless, she
is also illogical. Imagine having amazing ability to cause pain only by touching
someone. Your whole life she has been sided and hated, and the only thing she
wants is to be left alone, or die. She has a chance to fight back and prove her
worth, but self-pitying and praying for death is, obviously, more alluring.
“He reaches to touch my arms and the feeling only makes me
more desperate to die. He sighs and pulls me up, just enough to lift my head.
His hands trap my face and his eyes search me until I look away. ‘I know what
happened,’ he says softly. My throat is a reptile, covered in scales. ‘Someone
should just kill me.’”
Half of the time she is being selfless (pretending to be, at
least) and the other half she is being clingy while Adam’s world is slowly
falling apart (by her fault of course).
“Adam doesn’t say anything. He doesn’t tell me to be brave.
He doesn’t ask me if I’, okay, if I’m scared. He doesn’t offer me encouragement
or assure me that we’ll be just fine. He doesn’t tell me to leave him behind…”
I don’t plan on finishing these series although I hate leaving
something unfinished, but I don’t think I could pull this trough.
2 komentari
It's a shame you don't plan on continuing, but I get it XD
ReplyDeleteI'm a huge fan of the series BUT I became one after reading the ending of book 2 XD Also, I've read this book in 2015 when I was a total book noob and it was one of my first fantasy series. Anyways, where was I going with this... Ah yes. The writing in the first book is nuts. The romance takes over and there's very little plot. I've also complained about metaphors in my review and they are just too cringy, e.g.:
"James and Adam glance back at me and I melt into pink Play-Doh."
But, luckily for us, the writing changes in the sequels. There are no crossed sentences and the metaphors are left at the bare minimum. And I can't not mention Juliette's character development, trust me, she becomes so kick ass it's amazing *u*
Anyways, if you change your mind - great, if not - great again XD You'll have more time to find and read a series you're gonna really love :D
Ohhh, now I'm reconsidering my choices.
ReplyDeleteI was 100% sure I would not continue it, but now I even might keep reading because books aren't that long, and if they are improving, why not.
Thanks for the advice :)
-Lara