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** spoiler alert **

3/29/20
It's still difficult to rate this book. Definitely not 4 or 5 stars, but I don't know if I could go lower. This book's two halves are competing to be the worst half: the first half is SO boring and over-explained with no plot points, and the second half is the characters calling themselves by new names with cliche and annoying dialogue. I didn't find myself as upset by this as I was the first time(s) I read it, but I don't think the book got any better. I just was more prepared that it wasn't going to be what I was hoping.

4/28/19
This review is going to sound really negative, but truthfully, I think this book has equal parts good and bad. The difference is, whereas all the other Shatter Me books�� good parts outweighs any bad that exists, this book had so many terrible scenes and lines of dialogue that were not be redeemed by the sparse action and melodramatic romance scenes. There’s really no way for me to jump into this other than chronologically, so here we go.

Reunions

The reunions sucked because the stakes felt so low and I never felt any adrenaline or excitement about their reunion. It was just sort of��. Oh. Like, Lifetime Movie Network called and they want their script back. Every single line of it was so annoying, and nothing about them reuniting was unique. There was no description of the desperation of the two or how each other looked; it was all Juliette’s cliche crying and apologies, and blanket statements like “he’s alive�� and “he’s intact." Since we’ve known for 300 pages that Warner is fine, it’s really anticlimactic for Juliette to be like omg he’s alive!! Like yeah, we know. I just really was not digging this writing at ALL.
More than the dramatic cheesy dialogue and Juliette breaking out into cliche sobs, I LOATHE how she was the one apologizing to him. Juliette did NOTHING wrong in Restore Me except not communicate with him, but she blamed herself for everything and Warner didn’t even think to, I don’t know, APOLOGIZE BACK�� Warner was literally the one in the wrong but Juliette was the one apologizing profusely. I wanted them to solve their shit instead of pretending like everything will be perfect until the end of time. Which is another thing that bothers me.
In Restore Me, Kenji very accurately stated something like, "You have to talk and figure out your shit before your relationship can be okay," but the second warnette made eye contact in this book, their relationship was perfect all over again with zero discussion except "no more lies" which like..... blah! Again, I felt like a bunch of development from Restore Me just got dumped down a drain. I wanted Juliette to continue being angry with him. I wanted her to demand an apology and them to have a long discussion about what went wrong instead of them collapsing into each others�� arms crying melodramatically and then her apologizing and them being like NOTHING IS WRONG WITH OUR LOVE AND OUR PAST IS THE PAST AND WE WILL BE TOGETHER FOREVER!

The engagement

I don’t like it. I get it. But I don’t like it.
I understand Warner's motivation. I understand the “we don’t know we have tomorrow, so I want to be together now.�� But��. there’s so many flaws in that logic. I think mostly, it’s knowing Tahereh said that she’s not killing off Warner or Juliette that makes it so anti-climactic. Warner being worried they won’t survive is just kind of bullshit because��. we know they will. Also, I know that Warner says he considers their residence in 241 a new beginning free from obligation and the beginning of a new life, but it’s such an unceremonious, boring place. I wish that their engagement could be attached to somewhere that’s sentimental for them rather than just a tent in the middle of nowhere. I’m also trying to justify these criticisms against knowing that Warner isn’t one for theatrics. I understand he wouldn’t want to make a huge deal out of it, but his not knowing he’s supposed to have a ring is just�� out of character? Especially when he’s able to chime off random facts about Tangled.

Writing Style
I think this is the part of the book that let me down the most.
Shatter Me has been an iconic book for its metaphors and description and lush detailing, so it’s like this book is from another author completely. There’s a difference between evolved writing and laziness. It just completely lacks any character or setting descriptions. Both within each scene and throughout the entire book, if I didn’t have the characters�� faces and descriptions memorized, it’d be hard to even get a sense of what they were like. Particularly in the reuniting scene and with Juliette’s biological parents, I think the writing veered toward dry and boring because it left out any unique descriptions that would make those scenes more vivid or meaningful. We're meeting her real parents for the first time, which is HUGE, and we don't even get their hair color until the end? It was just so sloppy.
Also, there were certain points where new information would be revealed and someone would ask a rhetorical question, and you could tell it only functioned so that readers could keep up with the story. Honestly, this criticism is mean, but it felt like this book was written for the dumbasses who ask stupid questions about the series because they didn’t understand the subtlety of the previous books and so Tahereh started spelling things out plainly—far too plainly in my opinion. I know books in series should stop and give you an idea of the previous books, but still, the number of times that characters stopped and asked such clunky rhetorical questions and had paragraphs-long recaps of stuff we already know just became disappointing.
Also, the two week time skip within this book is something I really don’t like. A lot of opportunities were lost to flesh out the world building and Juliette's parents and stuff. I feel like we were cheated out of descriptions of Juliette’s day-to-day life that really would have expanded the story to a more meaningful level. We never got scenes of her pretending to have her memory wiped. We never got scenes of her interacting with her parents, pretending to be civil, never got her reactions to information as she was receiving it, only in hindsight. I’m just upset that SO much of this time skip was omitted because I think we lost a lot of valuable information and details. I was so excited that this book was set in New Zealand, but we literally didn’t get a single description of it other than the brief time she was on a balcony, which was told in a flashback. Massive let-down.
Finally, the cheesiness! The dialogue in this was awful more times than not. Usually, warnette lines are iconic and meaningful, but I could actually compile a list of lines they say to each other in heated or passionate or cute moments that completely ruined the mood for me because they were so cheesy or typical or blah.

The name changes

I think Juliette's name change had the potential to be okay. Two things could have sold me on it: first, the characters actually continue to call her Juliette UNTIL she’s indicated that she doesn’t want to be called it anymore. I know that’s her birth name and her “real�� identity, but the other characters deciding for her that that’s who she’s gonna be rubbed me the wrong way. I understand Nazeera, or even Warner, considering her Ella, but everyone else being so quick to jump on board just felt really icky because it was like they were deciding who she was without her being there or her consent.
Second, I wanted Juliette to have a longer and/or more meaningful discussion of why she didn’t want to go by Juliette anymore. I understand why she doesn’t. I understand Juliette is an old name, one that was only given to her by Anderson as a cruel joke. But I feel like she deserves to keep the name Juliette because she reclaimed it. Anderson labeled her a tragedy but she rose above all her trauma and metamorphosed her pain and fear into love and action in order to better herself, her friends, and her world. She overcame the name and the abuse of the man and the stereotypes that came with it. Reverting to Ella, I understand, is somewhat of a clean slate and shows her heritage as a person of power, but it’s just not the same person to me. If she would have taken more time to unpack why she wants to be called Ella instead of literally only just saying “it’s prettier,�� then I wouldn’t be as upset. This applies both in Juliette’s and Warner’s point of view.
Warner deciding so quickly that he likes the name Ella more and he wants to default to that with no transition just felt so off. In general, I think this relates to the fact that after they got their memories back (*cough* infodumps of flashbacks), they did very little to reconcile past with present, so it was like their memories never actually blended their present selves. They never had a moment of looking at each other with the weight of new memories on their backs, and they never even talked about their shared history other than “do you remember me?�� and “yeah.�� The majority of Warner's feelings for Juliette developed during the last four months, so it felt really uncomfortable that he would revert back to Ella so quickly when it was Juliette he felt such deep feelings for. I’m not saying it’s entirely unrealistic, just that I wish there would’ve been a longer explanation or transition rather than the abrupt jump from one name to another with no notable differentiation between the two.
Waiting four years to publish add-on books and then changing the identity of your main characters five years after their established names is just too much for me. I’ve been loving these books for almost seven years and I can’t make that change overnight, even though I’m trying to be more willing to see them as Ella and Aaron.

The sex scene

It’s weird that all my complaints about this book are about the romance because warnette is literally what keeps these books afloat but this was just bad!!! 90% of my trouble with the romance is because the name changes make my brain think they’re different characters, but still. The dialogue between them is so clunky and it just reads like Fanfiction for some reason. Also, for a reuniting make-up sex scene, it was drastically underwhelming, the same type of fade-to-black that chapter 55 was, but without any of the climactic angst or sexy dialogue. Also, Juliette is not a screamer and I will die on that hill. Also, yall got condoms???? I’m NOT dealing with a book 6 pregnancy plot. Also, the fact that afterward Kenji waltzes in the room while they’re both half naked is just so out of character. I know this is all so specific but like��. ugh.

Random/Dumb complaints (ie. things I wish were different but it’s just my own selfishness and let down expectations, not necessarily flaws with the book or writing itself)

•I will always harbor resentment that we weren’t given a scene of all the characters reacting humorously to Warner’s first name. At this point, even if we get it belatedly, it’s still not gonna be that funny. For so many characters (including Juliette) to name drop Warner so often and all the side characters give no response, it reeeeally let me down that there was no theatrical or funny moment of them being like “hahah whoa you have a first name!�� like not even Adam gave a reaction. It just makes me think that maybe they knew all along, and that kinda makes me sad bc for soooo long, once again, I thought they didn’t know and it would’ve been funny if they found out.
•Juliette waking up in her childhood bedroom and meeting her parents was a disappointing scene for me because it felt like the same character she was at the beginning of Ignite Me. In Restore Me she went through this whole transformation of “now I don’t give a shit�� and she got so much more confident, yet she still became such a blubbering mess multiple times in this book. Now again, I don’t want this to be construed as me calling Juliette weak or annoying because I will LITERALLY fight anyone who thinks this and it’s the number one thing that gets me heated when I see it in negative reviews, but still, the way Juliette’s dramatic reactions to things felt so out of character with the growth that she experienced in the past two books.
•Ppl were roasting Delalieu so hard and my lil snake man did not deserve it. Honestly if the twins don’t heal him im unstanning
•The first time I read the book, I got a lot of anxiety from the idea that Juliette was “made�� almost like a robot rather than a human being. This isn’t quite a criticism anymore, but this book is teetering on the edge of uncomfortable and if that is expanded or exploited in book six, it might make it irreparably painful or unrealistic for me to read.

Questions/theories

•HOW DOES ANDERSON KNOW WHAT WARNER’S BEEN DOING?????? WHY THE SEX IN THE AFTERNOONS LINE?????? IM SO DISTURBED I’M BEYOND WORDS WHAT THE FUUUUUUU
•What are the plans Anderson made for James and Adam?
•What if Leila is in the asylum?
•Why does Warner remember his mom in the NZ lab? Is what juliette experiences as her mom works on her what Leila was inflicted with?
•Anderson told warner “I stole your memories of a lot of things�� and I neED TO KNOW WHAT ELSE HE DOESN’T REMEMBER!! Did he have a childhood with Adam in it? Are there memories with his mom? Baseball? Other siblings? More abuse? Idk I’m stressed

4/3/19
The more I think about it, the more and more I think this really just isnt on the same level as the other books and theres 2 major plot points that i really just don’t like, so im lowering this to 4 stars or maybe even a 3.5.

4/2/19
4.5 stars?? Something stops me from giving this a full five because there were actually a number of things that I'm not a fan of, but I know from past experience that rereading it helps it feel more real, so I might just have to do that, but still.

I devoured this so fast I didn't even have time to mark it as "currently reading" on goodreads. but HOOOLLYY SHITTTTTTTT this plot twist had me literally running around my house and screaming!!!!