» Shatter Me — Tahereh Mafi.
Thursday, July 19, 2012
4:56 PM
[ ]
I cannot understand why so many people loved this and have been recommending this to me. I am not going to lie, I read 338 pages of this and I still have no idea what was supposed to be so amazing or captivating about it.
Here we have a summary. Juliette's touch is fatal to other living things. Thus she has been locked up in an asylum and did not touch anyone for exactly 264 days. That is until she gets a cellmate who is — surprise surprise — a male about her age and is incredibly handsome and gorgeous and perfect and he will become her bird so she she can fly fly fly away! What the fuck.
Let's start with the positives. I like the idea of an insane girl being locked up for having a power that kills. I like the concept of a crumbling world, and things changing and all that. The whole deal with The Reestablishment sounds interesting.
Now.
The only reason this book is called a "dystopia" is because it is set in a supposedly crumbling world, yet there was no word-building whatsoever. I really found it hard to care that the clouds are the wrong colour, or that birds don't fly, or that they are trying to get rid of languages, or that there will be a war. I can keep going.
This belongs in the romance section. The instalove in this novel is evident, and I do not buy the whole "childhood friends" thing. It seems like it was added in as an excuse so the author did not have to build up a relationship gradually and could just start writing scenes of Juliette and Adam swapping saliva. They're making out in the shower 100 pages in, for Christ's sake. What is going on.
Everything is just so terribly convenient it's not even funny. Adam just happens to like Juliette since childhood and she liked him back. He just happens to be among the people who wanted to find Juliette. He just happens to have immunity to radiation. He just happens to be immune to Juliette's touch.
Adam is a completely flat character. The only thing I remember about his personality is the fact that he is in love with Juliette. That is completely it. He has no little habits I can recall, nothing that makes him his own person. His purpose is to be a pair of lips Juliette can suck on once in a while. It is quite disgusting.
Warner was a cheesy villian. The only character I actually liked was Kenji, who actually seemed to be more intelligent that Juliette and Adam combined. Winston was cool too, until he gave Juliette that leotard at the end. What the hell was that.
Where did the ending come from anyway. It appeared out of nowhere, with no buildup or foreshadowing or anything. Just — bam. And it is suspiciously similar to another fandom, which makes me a sad panda, because I like those movies.
Juliette just seemed weak to me. I understand that this book was supposed to be from the point of view of an unstable, insane girl who spent more than 200 days in isolation. Yet throughout the book she is either whining, petrified in fear, wishing to die, et cetera.
Also, um, Juliette, if you can apparently crush concrete with your bare goddamn hands then why
Why didn't you
Why didn't you just bash Warner's skull in? Instead of, you know, firing a gun at him with your eyes closed.
The writing was dreadful. The metaphors were painful, like the author was trying way too hard to be creative and poetic. I know that the writing is the reason most people liked it, but it just made my head hurt. I head to reread some sentences a few times before they actually made any sense.
"I'm an old creaky staircase when I wake up."
"I catch the rose petals as they fall from my cheeks, as they float around the frame of my body, as they cover me in something that feels like the absence of courage."
"Every organ in my body falls to the ground."
"There are 400 cotton balls caught in my windpipe."
"Warner thinks Adam is a cardboard cutout of vanilla regurgitations."
And I'm probably going to read Unravel Me, too.
rating: ★★☆☆☆
sviristelle.
Labels: review, Shatter Me, Tahereh Mafi
|
|
|
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home