REVIEW--Shatter Me

Happy Thursday, everyone! 
 
I have heard SO MANY people--librarians, bloggers, students--talk about the Shatter Me series by Tahereh Mafi that I knew I had to read it PRONTO.

The series is dystopian--which I love like the rest of the world--and a mixture of romance, action, and mystery.  So let's jump right into a review of the first book, Shatter Me!

• First in the Shatter Me series
• Dystopian

The Gist: 
Juliette has a power--her touch is dangerous.  By simply touching her you can get seriously hurt or even killed.  So her parents have had her locked up for the last 264 days.
And the world itself isn't doing much better--diseases are killing people, food is scarce, etc.  Survival is priority in the outside world.
But the Reestablishment thinks that Juliette might be a tool they can use as they work to "rebuild" society.  And Juliette has to learn who can be trusted and what she must do for her own survival.

What I Loved:

• Like I said, this book had everything--dystopian setting, romance, action, mystery.  It grabs at all of your emotions for sure!
• Mafi's prose is so stylistic and unique...I just couldn't get enough of her writing.  She uses numbers in number form (instead of writing them out as we so often see) which just added a lot of character to the story.
• I enjoyed the main characters, Juliette and Adam.  And I TOTALLY like them as a pair!  
• As the reader, you get to be inside Juliette's mind a lot, and this really deepened her role as the protagonist.  Mafi also writes a lot in Juliette's inner dialogue and then crosses it out, just as if you were second guessing or correcting yourself in your own mind.  Again, this really added depth to her character and made her more human to me.

What I Didn't Love:

• I wanted some more background on Juliette and The Reestablishment.  I felt like readers were thrust into the middle of the story without much world-building.
• Warner is an odd villain to me.  First of all, it is revealed that he is 19 years old, and up to that point I expected him to be MUCH older.  And second, he seems naive in his feelings toward Juliette.  I know many villains can be blinded by love for someone, but he just seems downright foolish at times.  I'm curious to see where his character goes in the next book.
• I don't fully grasp the cover.  It's beautiful, but not really what I expected for the book.  

A solid first book in a series, although all they hype I'd been given left me wanting more.  I hear the next two books in the series really do it justice, so I can't wait to start those!

I'll be designing a look soon based on Juliette...can't wait to show you!