My Thoughts: Shatter Me by Tahereh Mafi

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.

Hello, and welcome to another Audiobook review. 

I was late to the Shatter Me party. I'm not sure why it took me SO long to read this book. It may have been partially due to the influx of dystopian novels being published last year and I was kind of over them all. But when I saw the audiobook for Shatter Me on sale on Audible for $5.00 I thought, why not. It still took me months to "read" it though. 

The audiobook of Shatter Me is a little long, at just over nine hours. But, I was sucked into the world that Tahereh Mafi created immediately. There was absolutely because Shatter Me is a fantastic novel, but also because the Narrator- Kate Simses did an incredible job narrating the story. If you've read Shatter Me (as I am sure you have, as everyone and their cousin has read this book), you know that this book is full of stressful intense scenarios. Kate Simses does a great job of telling the story through those scenes, her voice speeds up and you feel like it's Juliette telling you the story herself. She does a good job of demonstrating the panic Juliette feels at the thought of touching someone, the sorrow she feels when she recalls what she has done and how she had caused another pain. I really enjoyed experiencing this book though audio. For those of you interested Kate Simses also narrates Matched and Crossed by Ally Condie. 

Things might get a little spoiler-y here: beware.

While I really enjoyed this novel, I am not sure that I would have been as impressed with it, had I read it instead of listened to it. For me, there were few things I found incredibly unique about the story other than Juliette's inability to touch anyone. That, however, was pretty cool. I was not at all surprised that she was to be used as a weapon of sorts, I wasn't surprised that Adam was put into her jail cell as a decoy, nor was I surprised that he was faking the whole loyal soldier thing. 

What I really liked about Shatter Me though, was how Juliette waffled between liking and hating Warner. He was a malicious and selfish individual, however with Juliette he displayed a measure of kindness and caring. It was crazy. I didn't mind Warner- I wanted Juliette to get away from him, but I thought he was a tad misinformed and had potential to be good. And from I have been seeing in the reviews for Unravel Me, others are rooting for him to. 

What I kind of also really liked was the end of Shatter Me, when Adam and Juliette were at the compound with the other mutants. I say mutants cause that is was it screams to me. It's mutant school. It was a total X-Men feel. I am not judging, I absolutely loved this aspect of the novel. I loved that there were other's with super powers and that they were all different. I am really looking forward to Unravel Me (which I think I will also listen to). To see what else comes from these X-Men like individuals. 

Overall, I really liked Shatter Me, even though there were times that it got REALLY predictable. The writing was fantastic the story was great and the narration was perfect. I am glad I waited a while to read it. I definitely appreciated it more because of that. 

~Happy Reading Everyone!