Review: Shatter Me by Tahereh Mafi

From Hicklebee’s:“You can’t touch me,” I whisper.

I’m lying, is what I don’t tell him.

He can touch me, is what I’ll never tell him.

But things happen when people touch me.

Strange things.

Bad things.

No one knows why Juliette’s touch is fatal, but The Reestablishment has plans for her. Plans to use her as a weapon.

But Juliette has plans on her own.

After a lifetime without freedom, she’s finally discovering a strength to fight back for the very first time—and to find a future with the one boy she thought she’d lost forever.

Shatter Me is different. Different in a mind-blow-ey way. I read it way earlier than I should have, but the description and book cover you see above sang to me. I was torn between ripping through the book at a fanatical pace, and pausing to admire each gorgeously crafted sentence. In the end my mind and heart which were at war with each other settled on a compromise of moderate pacing.

Juliette is so beautifully tragic. Her whole life has revolved around the fact that she can’t be touched. If she touches someone, or someone inadvertently touches her she drains the life out of them. No one understands her condition and she seems to be the only one who has been born with such an affliction. She dreams of being touched, of being let out of her cell, to be released, to fly like birds which are no longer able to fly and flying has since become the stuff of legend. Then she gets a cellmate. She’s never had one before, and its a boy… are the prison guards messing with her?

After a few silent days in the cell with a boy who seems to have forgotten her she begins to trust him. They talk and become closer, then they are released from the prison. Juliette comes to the painful realization that the boy in her cell was a ploy, he is part of the Reestablishment and that they want to use her power to exert more control over an already afraid and repressed population. She could be the key to controlling the masses.

From here on out in the novel we are taken on an adventure. Who can Juliette trust, how will she ever be free, and are there more people with special powers out there? The prose is poignent and brilliant. A literary dive into dystopia that is breathtakingly beautiful and heartbreakingly sad all at once. Juliette is a strong character and she grows emotionally at an exponential rate throughout the novel.

It was incredibly refreshing to read a book where the heroine is smart, strong and incredibly thoughtful. Juliette is so incredibly broken and sweet you can’t help but love her and wish her well, to rage with her and hope that she finds everything she wants and needs. You, the reader will think she deserves more than she is given, and you will champion her efforts to find her space in this torn world that Mafi has created.

I cannot begin to tell you how much I loved this book, the characters and the prose. It was one of my favorite books of this year and I hope you will love it as much as I did when it releases from HarperTeen on November 15th.

Shatter Me is everything that YA should strive to be.

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This entry was posted on Monday, October 10th, 2011 at 10:37 am and is filed under dystopian, Reviews, Romance, Science Fiction, Teen. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

Review: Wither by Lauren DeStefano

What if you knew exactly when you would die?

Thanks to modern science, every human being has become a ticking genetic time bomb—males only live to age twenty-five, and females only live to age twenty. In this bleak landscape, young girls are kidnapped and forced into polygamous marriages to keep the population from dying out.

When sixteen-year-old Rhine Ellery is taken by the Gatherers to become a bride, she enters a world of wealth and privilege. Despite her husband Linden’s genuine love for her, and a tenuous trust among her sister wives, Rhine has one purpose: to escape—to find her twin brother and go home.

But Rhine has more to contend with than losing her freedom. Linden’s eccentric father is bent on finding an antidote to the genetic virus that is getting closer to taking his son, even if it means collecting corpses in order to test his experiments. With the help of Gabriel, a servant Rhine is growing dangerously attracted to, Rhine attempts to break free, in the limted time she has left.

The how I came by my copy of Wither is a quaint little story. I was at a conference for booksellers in Oakland last October. I was on a panel explaining how bloggers and bookstores can come together to build a magical relationship. When I returned to the conference the next day, I went straight to the S&S booth on the exhibit floor where I had previously (via Twitter) confirmed that Wither would be on the table. I stood politely off to the side and stroked the finished copies of so many awesome books. I asked the sales person if I could see a copy of Wither and she said no, she gave me Elixir and gave me a be-gone look. I came back later and procured Wither from a rep who recognized me! So this review comes to you by manner of a covert book-ninja operation.

Wither is such a refreshing addition to the YA genre. Actual problems other than lip gloss and hair are dealt with. Mature subject matter is handled and can I just go a bit fangirly on the character development in this book?! There is not one character in this book that you will leave you without feeling some strong emotion.

Rhine is everything I would hope that I could be set in a dystopic environment. She is strong, smart and she knows how to play the game. Her sister wives lack her ability to play and are sidelined as Rhine becomes head wife. She is four years away death and so is her husband. It should be a match made in heaven. Probably would have been if it wasn’t a forced marriage.

For males twenty-five is the fatal age. For women it’s twenty. We are all dropping like flies. page 8 of the ARC

Rhine learns that her new husband The House Governor already has a wife, and only one. She wonders why he would want new wives:

“”That’s Rose,” he says. “The House Governor’s first wife.” All Governors take a first wife: the number doesn’t refer to the order of marriage, but it is an indication of power. The first wives attend all the social events, they appear with their Governors in public, and, apparently, they are entitled to the privilege of an open window. They’re the favorites. page 16 of the ARC

This book is full of problems, love and so much more. If you enjoy dystopic story lines and love stories then in March remember to pick Wither up you will not be disappointed.

Why Teens Will Love It:

Margaret Atwood’s Handmaid’s tale is updated for the new generation with much more information, more description and fantastical characters. This is the book to begin a dystopic journey through forced marriage and medical induced malady.

Why Adults Will Love It:

Wither is perfect for any adult. While the story line follows teens, there is a very mature arc of character. These teens have to grow up fast because they will be dead before they reach their mid twenties.

I picked up this ARC very stealthily from a conference.

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This entry was posted on Thursday, January 6th, 2011 at 10:00 am and is filed under dystopian, Reviews. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

Review: Mockingjay by Suzanne Collins

Goodreads: Against all odds, Katniss Everdeen has survived the Hunger Games twice. But now that she’s made it out of the bloody arena alive, she’s still not safe. The Capitol is angry. The Capitol wants revenge. Who do they think should pay for the unrest? Katniss. And what’s worse, President Snow has made it clear that no one else is safe either. Not Katniss’s family, not her friends, not the people of District 12. Powerful and haunting, this thrilling final installment of Suzanne Collins’s groundbreaking The Hunger Games trilogy promises to be one of the most talked about books of the year.

I literally finished Mockingjay fifteen minutes ago. Normally I take time and reflect and think. There is a list of questions I ask myself before every review after I have slept on the ending for a night. I do not need any of this preparation to tell you that I loved Mockingjay.

Collins did not always do the popular thing in this book. Katniss has suffered through these pages in ways I will let you find out about on your own. There will be no spoilers here. Katniss suffered in ways I could never imagine. Even when the back of your mind was screaming at you that something was going to happen you can’t believe it until the finality of Collins words dashes your hope for a different turn.

This book is an emotional roller coaster of epic proportions. I laughed, I cried, I grieved and I know I will have trouble moving on. You will note that I didn’t review either of the previous books in the series. They had been reviewed a million times and I had nothing to add. I figured I would not review Mockingjay either but I had no choice.

Collins ended this series in ways I could not have seen coming. It was fantastical, diabolical, it toys with you the reader as a hook toys with a fish. It will leave you gasping for air, begging for more and knowing that this is the finality it will leave you with much to think about.

If you haven’t read this series, begin. You do not want to miss the conclusion of The Girl on Fire and all of her friends.

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This entry was posted on Tuesday, August 24th, 2010 at 10:37 pm and is filed under Fiction, Reviews. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

Review: Witch and Wizard by James Patterson

The world is changing: the government has seized control of every aspect of society, and now, kids are disappearing. For 15-year-old Wisty and her older brother Whit, life turns upside down when they are torn from their parents one night and slammed into a secret prison for no reason they can comprehend. The New Order, as it is known, is clearly trying to suppress Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Being a Normal Teenager. But while trapped in this totalitarian nightmare, Wisty and Whit discover they have incredible powers they’d never dreamed of. Can this newly minted witch and wizard master their skills in time to save themselves, their parents–and maybe the world?

I have fallen in love with the way James Patterson writes action. I focus mostly on YA here and have been dying to get my grubby little paws on this since I heard the great marketing scheme for ARC copies at BEA 2009. I bought the book and then devoured it in half a day.

The story is dystopian. Whit and Wisty (Wisteria) are really thought out characters who have a lot of spunk but no clue that they are in fact a witch and a wizard. The book has loads of cool graphics in the form of proclamations. The story line was fast paced and very fun to read.

The book has some great names for the government officials, The One who Judges, The One who is the One and so on. Also at the end of the book is a list of banned materials that are utter hilarious parodies of books and music that have been banned or challenged at some point in America.

I have seen loads of not so great reviews on this book around online. The problem is it was marketed as a YA novel when it is purely MG. I think if that is understood going into the book then you will love it as well. It seems to be set up for a second book and I can’t wait to get it in my grasp.

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This entry was posted on Saturday, February 20th, 2010 at 10:26 am and is filed under Fantasy, Fiction, Reviews. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.