Shatter Me Series by Tahereh Mafi

Pick a dandelion and close your eyes

make a wish

blow it into the wind.

Watch it

change

the

world.

-From  Juliette's Journal

Cover Art Courtesy of Goodreads

Let me start out this review by saying I hate myself for waiting so long to read this series. I've seen it so many times and heard numerous people rave about it, but I just never made an effort to read it. Well I finally ordered it from Amazon and gave it a try, and I DEVOURED these books. I honestly think I read the whole series in a total of less than 24 hours. It was just that fantastic. While many of my reviews don't contain spoilers, this one will have some pseudo-spoilers because it's simply impossible to talk about characters, etc. from the second two books without revealing some of the earlier plot.

Cover Art Courtesy of Goodreads

The Shatter Me series by Tahereh Mafi (so far) consists of Shatter Me, Unravel Me, Ignite Me, and Unite Me (a collection of two novellas: Destroy me and Fracture Me). This dystopian series follows Juliette, a teenage girl who has a lethal touch. It starts off with Juliette in an asylum, but she is soon taken hostage by the controlling government: The Reestablishment. Her captor Warner hopes to use her as a weapon against resisting rebels, but Juliette wants no part in being anything intentionally hurtful. Luckily Juliette escapes with Adam, a soldier who she knew from school long ago. They find refuge in an underground bunker and discover that there are others with abilities similar to Juliette's: invisibility, powers of healing, psychokinesis, and more. Adam and Juliette fall in love throughout this ordeal, and hope to finally have put the Reestablishment behind them. Unfortunately Warner still wants Juliette, and he sets out to find her. The remainder of the story details what happens when Warner finds her, resulting in rebellion, love, and self-discovery.

Cover Art Courtesy of Goodreads

I have so many things to say about this series! First, it got better as it went on. The first book was good, the second was great, and the third one was incredible. Many series just taper off as they go but this one was a surprising exception. I absolutely loved the character development (and the novellas are almost necessary to get some of that...so don't skip them!). Obviously my favorite character was Warner. He was such a deep character and had so much hiding behind his rough exterior. Juliette really annoyed me for the first half of the story, but she grew up and put her big girl panties on and then I really liked her strength and determination. And Adam, well Adam was kind of an ass. He gave me bad vibes from the beginning and I loved saying I told you so when his true colors came out later in the story. Kenji provided outstanding comic relief and was a great sidekick for Juliette, as you could tell he really cared about and supported her but wasn't afraid to be hard on her when he needed to be.

Cover Art Courtesy of Goodreads

There was some problematic instalove at the beginning of this story but it was very well explained as the books went on. I'm really glad that the characters were able to recognize that the relationship was unhealthy and more for convenience/out of default than anything else. The writing style was so unique. There was a lot of stream of consciousness from Juliette, and there are lots of thoughts crossed through to show how Juliette was afraid of thinking certain things. While this proved to be a bit of a challenge at first, I easily adjusted to how the story was written and it wasn't a hindrance at all.

The ending of Ignite Me definitely left it open for a sequel, so I'm really happy that Tahereh Mafi decided to write more onto this story. Restore Me comes out March 6th of this year, and you better believe I already preordered it!

Shatter Me Rating: 4 out of 5 Stars

Unravel Me Rating: 4 out of 5 Stars

Ignite Me Rating: 5 out of 5 Stars

Unite Me Rating: 5 out of 5 Stars

Overall Series Rating: 5 out of 5 Stars