Book Title: Shatter Me
Author: Tahereh Mafi
Book Series: Shatter Me
Book No.: Book 1
Genre: Young Adult, Dystopian, Fantasy
Published: 2011
Now, the reason why I picked Shatter Me up wasn’t because “TikTok made me”, as suggested by Amazon’s title of the book. I don’t have TikTok (much to the dismay of my friend, Berry). I picked this book up because it kept looking at me in every single bookshop I went to. I’m sure any reader will tell you how some books just LOOK at you until you buy them. Well… that was Shatter Me for me.
It’s been awhile since I read a YA book, and to be honest, I don’t know why I don’t read more of them. I do tend to like them. I think mostly because it’s hard to write well in first person and it seems like a lot of YA are in first person.
A lot of debut authors, including famous ones (Divergent) will try and describe the character using a mirror or some other sort of reflection (a photo perhaps). I’ve been guilty of this myself.
Shatter Me felt refreshing.
It doesn’t try and do an awkward way of describing the character. We learn about her naturally. The narrative feels more like a diary, perhaps because it is. She’s writing down things. And this comes across well with the way Mafi crosses out the character’s thoughts.
Synopsis of Shatter Me
Juliette has been locked up for 264 days without any human connection. The reason: last time she touched someone, they died. She was locked away to protect others.
Now, diseases are spreading, food is sparse, war is brewing. Juliette is thought to be of use but will she allow herself to become the Reestablishment’s weapon or will she become her own warrior
Grounding the reader with voice
This book is dystopian. I quiet like dystopian books, but I tend to struggle at the start. Mostly because of the world-building and info-dumping. Authors often see it as necessary so that the reader can follow what is going on in the plot. A mini history on what went wrong with the world and how society has changed to try and fix it. All leading to a mass of society being downtrodden and a saviour. And of course, Shatter Me does have the downtrodden and the saviour (or at least I assume that Juliette is the saviour. I haven’t read the other books)
I’m not saying that these exposition openings are bad. They’re not. It is needed information. But it also slows the story down. We’re not thrown into the mist of it. It’s slow as the character prepares for a big day that they knew was coming which will change their lives… like the selection and the matching ceremony, or recounts an event that changed their lives.
With Shatter Me, there is no past history being explained. All we know is that Juliette has done something that has gotten her locked up. That something isn’t explained, indicating that she is ashamed of it.
Instead, we are thrown deep into the story with the character in trouble. And I think this works really well. Mafi uses the present tense to show the character’s headspace rather than the surrounding area. No detailed description of an object or person. Just thought. Juliette’s thought. Immediately, from the get-go, we know how Juliette thinks. We know her conflicting thoughts and how she is reacting to what others are doing through this sort of journalistic prose.
Purple Prose and Repetitiveness
Ireally love Juliette’s voice. As I say, the sort of journalistic prose is really refreshing to me. You get to see the character’s inner trauma caused by her external trauma and that just felt new to me. However, Mafi does fall into the trap of purple prose. We’ve all done it.
The kind of prose that goes into unnecessary detail describing something so familiar it doesn’t need to be explained… like a raindrop falling.
I always wonder about raindrops.
I wonder about how they’re always falling down, forgetting their parachutes as they tumble out of the sky toward an uncertain end. It’s like someone is emptying their pockets over the earth and doesn’t seem to care where the contents fall, doesn’t seem to care that the raindrops burst when they hit the ground, that they shatter when they fall to the floor, that people curse the days the drops dare to tap on their doors.
It’s a beautiful passage but I wouldn’t say raindrops forget their parachutes or that its like emptying pockets. Now the shatter to the floor I can see, and the people cursing too. Those two pieces of imagery make sense, and it shows Juliette’s trauma but the bits before are just distracting and not needed.
The same goes for Adam and his blue eyes. I get that she has a crush and that she realises she recognises him from before she was locked up, but the reminders are perhaps too much.
Managing Shatter Me’s Plot
The plot of Shatter Me is handled well but follows the typical plot of ‘saviour is so powerful both sides want to use her’. The secret underground revealed later in the novel, and the side that initially frees Juliette from her prison to be used as a weapon by the reestablishment want to use her. The leader of the latter is Warner: a possessive and controlling butt that dresses her in revealing clothes while also laying claim to her.
A lot of YA series have possessive villains like this. To be honest, I would like to see the bad villain who is bad because of corrupt beliefs, not because he wants to claim the all-and-mighty protagonist. But it’s a typical character in the genre so it isn’t like Mafi is the only author to use this trope.
Juliette is forced to use her powers by Warner and learns she has another gift. The ability to go through material. This gives the protagonist protective armour. Very common in stories. It’s where the character is too strong to be able to be hurt. One of the worst cases I have seen this is in St Clair’s Seven Sorcerers.
Juliette escapes from Warner with love interest, Adam and spends majority of the book on the run and being all gooey eyed. During this time she loses her strength as a strong character as her thoughts turn to love.
While handled well, it was predictable in parts and I would have loved some sort of steering away from predictability. Additionally, the love scenes while on the run become bland, with the characters being gooey eyed and intimate rather than focused that some powerful guy is after them.
Shatter Me Characterisation
The characterisation for most of the characters were predictable. There’s the possessive villain, the love-sick puppy of a boyfriend who protects (or tries to), and the best friend that flirts. Additionally, both Adam and his best friend were double agents. Adam was an agent for Warner and his best friend for the underground network which he leads the couple to.
However, I did like how Juliette’s character was seen through her thoughts up until they went on the run. She was a strong character reacting to character and environment until the plot turned more towards the love interest. She is still strong when she interacts with Warner later but when Warner was not a threat, her relationship with Adam became boring for me.
I also like the characterisation of Adam’s brother, James. He adds layer to the story and prevents the relationship between the Adam and Juliette from becoming too boring.
Conclusion
As a YA dystopian book, Shatter Me is a good read. It does have some issues with predictability and purple prose but it also did keep me entertained when reading it and I like that I am thrown directly into the story. At the time I read it, I was not in the headspace to read anything too heavy and it was light enough for me to get through it quickly. However, I am in no rush to get the second boo.