Review: Shatter Me by Tahereh Mafi

Fast-paced start to a brilliant dystopian/fantasy trilogy with a gorgeous poetic style.

Shatter Me 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 colour.

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.

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Shatter Me Review

Ooooh my. What a brilliant book. I completely raced through this fast-paced and addictive dystopian fantasy and cannot wait to read more of this brilliant trilogy. It’s full of twists and turns and a huge helping of swoon and I just loved it.

I don’t think that the artistic prose is going to be for everyone, but to me it was poetic, easy to read and enjoyable. It’s like a solid stream of consciousness pouring straight from Juliette’s mind onto the paper, crossed-through sentences and all. There isn’t a page that lacks a metaphor, so if that isn’t your kind of thing then I’d forgive you for walking away now. But if you’re curious, it will just take a chapter or two to get used to it, so I’d recommend going in open minded and giving it a chance.

I found the ending to be surprising, turning the whole feel of the novel into more of a fantasy than a dystopian with an X-Men-style twist, but I like the blend and am really interested about where the story will take us next.

This is one for fans of Red Queen, Delirium and The Sin Eater’s Daughter.

My rating

4.5/5 stars

Have you read Shatter Me? What did you think of it? Let me know in the comments section below or on Twitter.