Friday 6 February 2015

Shatter Me series by Tahereh Mafi

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.


--Goodreads.com description of Shatter Me--


This week I finished the Shatter Me series by Tahereh Mafi, which means I read Shatter Me, Unravel Me, Ignite Me and Unite Me (which contains the two novellas Destroy Me and Fracture Me). 

I have a lot of mixed feelings about this series, on one hand I couldn't put it down, I needed to know what would happen next. I liked the story line and the majority of the characters. On the other hand, I really disliked the writing style. 
To me it felt like bad creative writing and I'm kind of amazed this even got published. I know it is supposed to represent the thoughts of the protagonist but it was terrible to read. However, I still really wanted to keep reading. So that's why I have mixed feelings. The story intrigued me, but the writing style horrified me. Mafi's style slows the plot down and quite frankly a lot of Juliette's thoughts are unnecessary to the story and most of the time just really stupid. 

Another thing I want to mention is that the ending of Ignite Me didn't really feel like a dystopian ending. It feels like there should be another book to have a better ending of their world. Now only the romance part of the story is resolved. They won a battle but that doesn't mean they won the war.
If you read this book did you have the same problem? Or were you completely satisfied with the ending? Don't hesitate to leave a comment.

So, keep in mind that this is a dystopian young adult series that is not to be compared to Divergent or The Hunger Games. This is more like a romance combined with a dystopian setting. It is less action-packed than the books mentioned above. 
Since I really enjoyed the story but really disliked the writing style I'm giving this series 3 out of 5 stars. If the writing style didn't bother me so much I probably would have given these series 3,5 or 4 stars. 
And one final thing, the covers are simply amazing!

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