Review: Destroy Me

Destroy Me (Shatter Me 1.5)

Tahareh Mafi 

Companion to the Shatter Me trilogy

In Tahereh Mafi’s Shatter Me, Juliette escaped from The Reestablishment by seducing Warner—and then putting a bullet in his shoulder. But as she’ll learn in Destroy Me, Warner is not that easy to get rid of. . .
Back at the base and recovering from his near-fatal wound, Warner must do everything in his power to keep his soldiers in check and suppress any mention of a rebellion in the sector. Still as obsessed with Juliette as ever, his first priority is to find her, bring her back, and dispose of Adam and Kenji, the two traitors who helped her escape. But when Warner’s father, The Supreme Commander of The Reestablishment, arrives to correct his son’s mistakes, it’s clear that he has much different plans for Juliette. Plans Warner simply cannot allow.
Set after Shatter Me and before its forthcoming sequel, Unravel Me,Destroy Me is a novella told from the perspective of Warner, the ruthless leader of Sector 45.

You can read my reviews on the Shatter Me books here.

Ahhhhhh this was exactly what I wanted from Tahareh Mafi. Warner in all his glory!

What a sweet, smart, and DAMN SEXY man he is. You watch as he goes from running the world to an abused child in the presence of his father. You feel his pain as reads Juliette's words and knows all too well how she felt. How he slowly, but then all at once, falls in love with a girl he thinks can't love him. GOD IT WAS SO BEAUTIFUL TO READ.

Being a short story, there isn't all that much more to say - so, behold my favorite quotes that I hope will inspire you to pick up the series/novella:

“And I've fallen.
So hard.
I've hit the ground. Gone right through it. Never in my life have I felt this. Nothing like this. I've felt shame and cowardice, weakness and strength. I've known terror and indifference, self-hate and general disgust. I've seen things that cannot be unseen.
And yet I've known nothing like this terrible, horrible, paralyzing feeling. I feel crippled. Desperate and out of control. And it keeps getting worse. Every day I feel sick. Empty and somehow aching.
Love is a heartless bastard.”

“I’ve come to believe that the most dangerous man in the world is the one who feels no remorse. The one who never apologizes and therefore seeks no forgiveness. Because in the end it is our emotions that make us weak, not our actions.” 

“These letters are all I have left.26 friends to tell my stories to.26 letters are all I need. I can stitch them together to create oceans and ecosystems. I can fit them together to form planets and solar systems. I can use letters to construct skyscrapers and metropolitan cities populated by people, places, things, and ideas that are more real to me than these 4 walls.I need nothing but letters to live. Without them I would not exist.Because these words I write down are the only proof I have that I’m still alive.” 

“My opinions,” I say to him, quietly this time, “should not so easily break your own. Stand by your convictions. Form clear and logical arguments. Even if I disagree.” 

Review: Ignite Me

Ignite Me (Shatter Me #3)
Tahareh Mafi
Fantasy, dystopia

With Omega Point destroyed, Juliette doesn’t know if the rebels, her friends, or even Adam are alive. But that won’t keep her from trying to take down The Reestablishment once and for all. Now she must rely on Warner, the handsome commander of Sector 45. The one person she never thought she could trust. The same person who saved her life. He promises to help Juliette master her powers and save their dying world . . . but that’s not all he wants with her.

You can read my reviews of Shatter Me and Unravel Me here.

Shatter Me - a promising debut series off to a really strong start, and like most promising debut series, falls to a disappointing end.

If Unravel me was annoying, Ignite Me was pretty pathetic a lot of the time. 250 pages in, and we're still dealing with Juliette/Adam drama. The war? The big, epic battle we've been building up to for 3 books? Only started at page 369. Out of 408 pages total. Which is to say, nothing actually happens for most of the novel. 

Spoiler + Rant: The character of Adam is completely destroyed in this installment. And despite the fact that I was team Warner, this royally ticked me off. I HATE IT when authors do this- making a totally lovable character become a jerk just to solve a love triangle. It's cheap and crowd-pleasing, not to mention unrealistic. If Adam was a sweetheart for two books straight, he would not become a total ass at 20 something years of age out of nowhere.

It would seem that the whole focus of the story was Juliette's love life drama - the book didn't even pretend to care about defeating the Reestablishment. It was done at the end as an afterthought, and not even properly. Yup, the job wasn't even finished. In Unravel Me, the only reason they didn't kill Anderson was because of the other Supremes, and now they just kill him in 5 seconds flat without a care in the world. Ooooooook.

Oh, and Juliette decided she is qualified to run the world. She makes this decision all on her own, with no plan or something resembling a justified reason to do so. AND EVERYONE JUST ACCEPTS THIS. The entire sector just follow her unquestioningly when she says, let's just kill the ruler and I'll lead instead. WHATEVER. 

Warner explains himself a lot, which is nice, as I always thought he was better than Juliette thought him to be. However, he never DOES answer Adam's totally legitimate accusation of WHY (if he is not evil) did he torture Adam. And no one tells James the truth, nor is the Warner's mother's death addressed by Anderson. In fact, NOTHING is addressed by Anderson. Juliette walks in, shoots, book over. Why does JULIETTE get to kill him? I felt that both Warner and Adam had better claims, and usually in books this kinda thing is symbolic. 'Cuz honestly, Anderson had nothing to do with Juliette's tough life. He never hurt her directly at all...

I did like Warner a lot in Ignite Me (which reminds me- the tattoo was never explained either!!), and Kenji, of course, was the love of my life. The book overally was stupid, but I guess I had a good time reading it. Rating:

Happy weekend!
Love,
Esty

Review: Unravel Me

Unravel Me (Shatter Me #2)
Tahareh Mafi
Dystopia

tick
tick
tick
tick
it's almost
time for war.

Juliette has escaped to Omega Point. It is a place for people like her—people with gifts—and it is also the headquarters of the rebel resistance.

She's finally free from The Reestablishment, free from their plan to use her as a weapon, and free to love Adam. But Juliette will never be free from her lethal touch.

Or from Warner, who wants Juliette more than she ever thought possible.

In this exhilarating sequel to Shatter Me, Juliette has to make life-changing decisions between what she wants and what she thinks is right. Decisions that might involve choosing between her heart—and Adam's life.


You can read my review of Shatter Me here. As you can see, I adored the first book in this trilogy. However, Unravel Me fell short of my expectations.

Shatter Me end off with Juliette, Adam and Kenji arriving at Omega Point, so naturally I was excited. It's always so much fun to arrive at the center of the resistance in dystopian novels. When you start reading Unravel Me it becomes clear that Omega Point is a whole lot like District 13- right up to the dubious, supposedly good-intentioned leader. While that sounds good, I was actually really annoyed. The whole book played out like every. other. dystopian. novel. ever. 

And worse, so much happened for no. reason. whatsoever. Like, you have the supreme leader all incapacitated at your feet but instead of capturing him, you'll take the son hostage. WHY. I'd write more examples of this but I don't want to be too spoilery. Basically, I''ll tell you I rolled my eyes a lot.

Another thing that bothered me in both the books was how attracted all the male characters were to Juliette. I mean, COME ON, the girl has been isolated and starved in a cell for 3 years, how good can she look? And even after that - she has no access to any hair products or hair removal techniques, and is constantly on the run in all sorts of conditions. I refuse to believe she can constantly be so pretty. Or at least, to the point where EVERY MALE CHARACTER HAS TO COMMENT ON IT. MULTIPLE TIMES.

Also, in every chapter, Juliette would make some sort of resolution to be more helpful, to accept herself, to stop whining over her problems with Adam and see the bigger picture. Usually these promises were after an inspiring speech from Kenji. AND YET, EVERY TIME, she would find herself doing the exact thing she said she wouldn't do about 3 pages after she said it she wouldn't. IT WAS SO TIRING. 

Despite all this, I did find myself enjoying Unravel Me. Kenji is my love, and curiosity about Warner fueled my desire to keep reading. Rating:

Love,
Esty

Review: Shatter Me

Shatter Me
Tahareh Mafi
Dystopia, Fantasy

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.

It has taken me so long to catch up to everyone on this, and boy, am I glad I finally did.

Shatter Me was just a GREAT read. From the first sentence, I was hooked and intrugued. Juliette is such a strong character with such an intense and complicated past that served as a really fascinating backstory. Her struggle to overcome her mental and emotional barriers was done so realisticly and matched what I've heard and read about real victims of emotional abuse and neglect. And yet, the story wasn't heavy or hard to read. There's no graphic scenes and it's totally fine for the faint hearted. 

The characters were so wonderfully DYNAMIC! Adam, Warner and Kenji could each have their own book - and maybe they do, I know there are a few novellas part of this series. There was a touch of insta-love between Adam and Juliette- but they did have a mutual history, so I was able to buy it. 

Cover? Beautiful. Awesome female heroine with kick-butt powers? Check. Smoldering hot guy? CHEEECK. Writing? Great. Pacing? Just right. All in all? Pick up this book.

Only nitpick? I was hoping we'd get some sort of science fiction explanation to Juliette's powers, kinda like Under the Never Sky. The end suggested a bit of a fantasy direction, but we'll see(:

Rating:


Guess what? I'm the feautured blogger over at This Girl Reads A Lot! Come check out the interview HERE. Thanks, Jazmin!
Have a wonderful weekend, guys!
Esty