Review: Shatter Me by Tahereh Mafi

The Story (From Goodreads):

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.

My Thoughts: 

 Shatter Me is one of many YA books recently that has made me feel like crying because I must be at that point where I'm too old for this sort of $hit. I didn't have high hopes for this one because:

1. Look at the hideous cover.

2. Many bloggers whose opinions I respect haven't had good things to say about it. 

Looking back, I don't know why I forced myself to finish reading it. To be fair, I really believe that if Mafi decided to cut the gimmicky, metaphoric nonsense prose, her writing could be very enticing.  Instead, the unnecessary strike throughs just felt like one giant telling not showing horror. Maybe it would have helped if I was convinced for a second that Mary Sue Juliette really could have been crazy. But crazy people don't give a rats about whether their new cell mate is super hawt. They're too busy peeling the skin off their own faces and eating it (which coincidentally, is what I felt like doing at certain parts of this novel).

          Suffice to say, I didn't connect with any of the characters in this one. Least of all Juliette. Show me any teen who has gone through what she did and is still such an overbearing goodie goodie and I will show you where I keep my giant chest of leprechaun gold. And to top it all off, Juliette is also unbelievably gorgeous, a fact that she seems oblivious to despite every male character falling over his feet to point out to her any chance he can get. On that note, lets talk about the female characters in this one. Oh wait, there aren't any! It's difficult to be a special snowflake with a Katniss or a Rose as competition isn't it? Better not risk the limelight and not have any other leading ladies at all. 

       I could go on but I fear I've had a major subjective review relapse. I don't think I was the target audience for this book at all. 

The Rating:

4/10