Shatter Me (#1 - Shatter Me) - Tahereh Mafi

“Raindrops are my only reminder that clouds have a heartbeat. That I have one, too.” 

Title: Shatter me
Author: Tahereh Mafi 
Format: Paperback
Release Date: October 2nd 2012
Genre: YA, Sc-fi, Fantasy, Paranormal, Romance, Fantasy.
Stars out of ten: ☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆

Juliette hasn't touched anyone in exactly 264 days.

The last time she did, it was an accident, but The Re establishment 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 any more, and the clouds are the wrong colour.

The Re establishment 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 Re establishment 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. 

Oh my god, this book blew me away. The narrative was amazingly thoughtful and strangely gripping, I found myself wanting to re write every single sentence into a book of quotes just to imprint it into my mind. Do you know when a group of words are put together so perfectly that you just want to cry, scream and die all at the same time? Yeah, that's literally what I did throughout this book. 

The book started with the gripping and intriguing sentence of: 

"I've been locked up for 264 days"

I automatically knew I had picked a very good book and it did not disappoint with the exhilarating plot and perfectly structured characters it seems to me that there are no flaws within this book.

Juilette  has a curse her, touch is lethal.  She is in imprisonment because of what she can do, she has been for 264 days, she hasn't spoken to anybody for those days, she hasn't been touched for longer. When the guards announce that she has a new cell mate room mate she is shocked to find out that is a boy called Adam. Adam, who we later find out knew Juilette when they were both younger and longed to speak to her before she got taken away. A couple of days after Adam joins Juilette in her cell, the guards come in and take her away. She had been waiting for this moment for little under a year, but it did not happen how she imagined, she got taken to the unimaginable. A young man named Warner has freed her but in her eyes being in The Re-establishment is worse than being tapped in the Cell. Warner wants Juilette in order to use her lethal touch as a weapon, Juilette doesn't want to be a monster she wants to rebel against Warner but she cannot. She gets told by Warner that by putting Adam in her cell he was testing out whether she is still capable with human connection, she was. Adam is a guard and has been assigned to Juilette, but as Juilette tries to resist Adam she realises she cannot and they arrange an escape plan to get away from Warner in order to be free from the re-establishment. 

You may be questioning the random Strikethroughs , that is how this book is written. I don't think I have ever read a book with Strikethroughs being consistently used throughout the book, perhaps this is what made it more original and interesting to read. 

The romance was incredible, Adam was the most sincere and wonderful character ever and I really found myself falling in love with his character and his relationship with Juilette. 

The responses to this book are rather mixed, with the comments ranging from; "This book is just awful" to "This book is my muse." This controversy still earned Shatter me 

There was one comment that I could totally relate to, that puts the words that Mafi has put together into justice: 

Books like this—writing like this—reinforce how excited and how happy and how fortunate I am to be a writer myself, to be a part of this branch of the human race. Because, people? The words we use in our everyday speech, to order a pizza or yell at our boyfriends or interview a nanny—those words are not all there is. We can magnify those words, and make them sing, light them on fire. That’s what the words in books should do. That’s what the words in this book did for me.

I think along with all books that you enjoy there will always be people who hate the books and I find it so difficult to not argue with them and try to persuade them to like the book you love (you have no idea how difficult it is for me. Or maybe you do, who knows?) 

So I will leave you with that statement above, and hopefully you will be able to make the right decision (the decision to read this book, I mean if you don't want to don't but in my opinion it's amazing). 

So to conclude; 

                                                        My thoughts on the cover:

My thoughts on the romance: 

 My thoughts on the writing style: 

My thoughts on the plot:

This book is a one day read, resulting to the fact that you have to abandon your life whilst reading. It’s the reason you ditched that date, didn't go to work, didn't feed your kids, left your homework, who needs to shower? You need to read this book, you can forget about showering. 

My blog is better than your vlog

-Ellie