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A review by nerdfaerie
Shatter Me Series Box Set: Shatter Me, Unravel Me, Ignite Me by Tahereh Mafi
3.0
I liked this book a lot more than I expected to after the first one! I felt that Shatter Me had a beautiful writing style and a lot of potential, but was weakened by underdeveloped characters and an uninteresting romance. (The fact that I was listening to an audiobook with a narrator who made Juliette sound like she was twelve also probably didn't help.) And then Unravel Me happened.
The first character I fell in love with here as Kenji, who is funny but knows when to take things seriously, and often said exactly what I was thinking, and supports Juliette but calls her out on her mistakes, and really wishes people would stop telling him about their feelings, and has a mysteeeerious past that's only been hinted at thus far and that I really want to learn more about. Kenji grounded me in the story and made it possible for me to appreciate all the other characters.
Juliette has come so, so far from the isolated, self-loathing, terrified girl she was in the beginning of Shatter Me. And while it was frustrating to be inside her head in the beginning of the book, I honestly appreciate that her growth took a while. Seventeen years of thinking you're a monster isn't something you overcome in a day. (This is also why I strongly disagree with anyone who dismisses Juliette as weak and whiny). And even when Juliette made mistakes, even when she had backslides, she was consistently trying to grow. And she does! She learns to form connections, to fight for herself and the people she loves, to use the strength that's been inside her all this time.
The weakest part of the book for me, as with the first one, was the romance. I never really believed Juliette/Adam, or found them interesting. I felt that their story, while sometimes enjoyable, did not have much depth, and they seemed to have the exact same conversation over and over, which got really tiring really fast. I do like Adam himself well enough! I really want to see more of him and James, and him and Kenji, and him and Warner. I really hope that their dynamic in Ignite Me consists of more than just "we like the same girl and hate each other", as tends to happen with so many love triangles.
Oh, hey, now it's time to talk about Warner. The moment he showed up, I was shaking my head at myself because I KNOW MY OWN WEAKNESSES and I knew how this was going to go. SAD PAST! TERRIBLE FATHER! CHARACTER DOES TERRIBLE THINGS BUT REVEALS SOFT SPOTS! I AUTOMATICALLY START TO CARE ABOUT HIM EVEN THOUGH I KNOW I SHOULDN'T! And that's exactly how it happened! I like that we got some insight into why Warner is the way he is, and that he is completely aware of how terrible he is, and that there are still a few glimmers of hope that maybe he can be better.
That said, I am still not entirely sold on Warner/Juliette, mostly because the whole terrible-to-everyone-except-that-one-lady-I'm-obsessed-with(-and-the-occasional-dog) dynamic leaves a bad taste in mouth. (I'm bad at love triangles, okay?) I am, however, more interested in them than I am in the other option. I love that they see pieces of themselves in each other, how their perceptions of each other change, and the potential for growth between them.
(Side note: This is the second book I've read in which a guy reads a lady's personal writing WITHOUT HER KNOWLEDGE and tells her how beautiful it is and how he fell in love with her through her words and it's presented as this big romantic moment and NO VIOLATING PEOPLE'S PRIVACY IS NOT ROMANTIC PLEASE STOP) (obviously Warner has done MUCH worse things than that but this struck a chord in me because I've seen it before)
The worldbuilding was pretty standard YA-dystopia-land, nothing much to say here!
Tahereh Mafi's writing, as I've said before, is beautiful and unique and Juliette's headspace often feels a lot like a poem. I did feel that it worked against itself at times because it made the slow moments (eg, Juliette thinking about either one of her love interests) so much slower. Still, when it worked (which was most of the time) IT REALLY WORKED.
Aaaand I think that's everything! I read Unravel Me in less than 24 hours and I grew to love the characters and the series so much more. Now I'm off to check the library catalog to see if they have Ignite Me.
The first character I fell in love with here as Kenji, who is funny but knows when to take things seriously, and often said exactly what I was thinking, and supports Juliette but calls her out on her mistakes, and really wishes people would stop telling him about their feelings, and has a mysteeeerious past that's only been hinted at thus far and that I really want to learn more about. Kenji grounded me in the story and made it possible for me to appreciate all the other characters.
Juliette has come so, so far from the isolated, self-loathing, terrified girl she was in the beginning of Shatter Me. And while it was frustrating to be inside her head in the beginning of the book, I honestly appreciate that her growth took a while. Seventeen years of thinking you're a monster isn't something you overcome in a day. (This is also why I strongly disagree with anyone who dismisses Juliette as weak and whiny). And even when Juliette made mistakes, even when she had backslides, she was consistently trying to grow. And she does! She learns to form connections, to fight for herself and the people she loves, to use the strength that's been inside her all this time.
The weakest part of the book for me, as with the first one, was the romance. I never really believed Juliette/Adam, or found them interesting. I felt that their story, while sometimes enjoyable, did not have much depth, and they seemed to have the exact same conversation over and over, which got really tiring really fast. I do like Adam himself well enough! I really want to see more of him and James, and him and Kenji, and him and Warner. I really hope that their dynamic in Ignite Me consists of more than just "we like the same girl and hate each other", as tends to happen with so many love triangles.
Oh, hey, now it's time to talk about Warner. The moment he showed up, I was shaking my head at myself because I KNOW MY OWN WEAKNESSES and I knew how this was going to go. SAD PAST! TERRIBLE FATHER! CHARACTER DOES TERRIBLE THINGS BUT REVEALS SOFT SPOTS! I AUTOMATICALLY START TO CARE ABOUT HIM EVEN THOUGH I KNOW I SHOULDN'T! And that's exactly how it happened! I like that we got some insight into why Warner is the way he is, and that he is completely aware of how terrible he is, and that there are still a few glimmers of hope that maybe he can be better.
That said, I am still not entirely sold on Warner/Juliette, mostly because the whole terrible-to-everyone-except-that-one-lady-I'm-obsessed-with(-and-the-occasional-dog) dynamic leaves a bad taste in mouth. (I'm bad at love triangles, okay?) I am, however, more interested in them than I am in the other option. I love that they see pieces of themselves in each other, how their perceptions of each other change, and the potential for growth between them.
(Side note: This is the second book I've read in which a guy reads a lady's personal writing WITHOUT HER KNOWLEDGE and tells her how beautiful it is and how he fell in love with her through her words and it's presented as this big romantic moment and NO VIOLATING PEOPLE'S PRIVACY IS NOT ROMANTIC PLEASE STOP) (obviously Warner has done MUCH worse things than that but this struck a chord in me because I've seen it before)
The worldbuilding was pretty standard YA-dystopia-land, nothing much to say here!
Tahereh Mafi's writing, as I've said before, is beautiful and unique and Juliette's headspace often feels a lot like a poem. I did feel that it worked against itself at times because it made the slow moments (eg, Juliette thinking about either one of her love interests) so much slower. Still, when it worked (which was most of the time) IT REALLY WORKED.
Aaaand I think that's everything! I read Unravel Me in less than 24 hours and I grew to love the characters and the series so much more. Now I'm off to check the library catalog to see if they have Ignite Me.