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This is not a dystopia, it is a romance. This is not a novel, it is a collection of similes and metaphors, most of which do not make sense. I originally gave Shatter Me two stars because that's my sort of kneejerk reaction to books I don't like, but after thinking it over for a while, I can't recall anything positive about it that would justify a rating of more than one star.

You're probably assuming - correctly - that I went into this book with low expectations. This is completely true. Any so-called "dystopia" with a runway model on the front cover leaves me feeling sceptical. However, I was also prepared to allow myself to be surprised; a lot of my friends loved this and one of the biggest criticisms didn't actually bother me - purple prose. I think there's a fine line in writing between the pretty and the purplish and different readers will define it in their own way. For example, some reviewers thought that Lips Touch: Three Times was just a mess of bloated purple prose, whereas I thought it was one of the most beautiful books I read last year. I have a high tolerance level for flowery writing. But...

Shatter Me's numerous metaphors, similes, and endless descriptions just didn't make sense. What is this?:

"Hate looks like everybody else until it smiles. Until it spins around and lies with lips and teeth carved into semblance of something too passive to punch."

I just... WHAT??? This is one example floating around in there, but every second sentence is like this! That's not even mentioning the annoying strike-outs. Trust me, no really, trust me, I thought people were being overly picky when they said the crossed out sentences were annoying. I actually thought it sounded interesting, unusual, especially because the whole thing is meant to be written in a notebook and I cross stuff out in mine all the time. But you have no idea how bloody annoying this is to read. All the effin' time. People didn't exaggerate: it will most likely drive you crazy.

However, there was one thing that for me was even more annoying than the descriptions, the similes, the strikes, and that was the stupid repetition thing: "and then and then and then..." Again, if it had been used once, or sparingly even, then it wouldn't be so bad. I may have thought it was an interesting literary technique. But Shatter Me had way way way too much of everything (see what I did there?).

And story? What story? *sigh* It's about time we just opened up an entirely new genre called "Dystopian Romance" or alternatively "Romantic Dystopia", though I don't wish to be pessimistic, I'm pretty sure half the new releases of 2012 will make it into that category. If there was a story then it drowned amidst the waves of overenthusiastic and flowery prose. This reminded me of Article 5 in that the dystopia was there to make the romance interesting. One was certainly there to complement the other, but it was the wrong way around.

Also... kissing when you are fleeing for your lives?? I'm sure this is not the correct way of things, right? And yet it occurs in way too many young adult books. I'm like: "run, run, run!" but the characters are too busy swapping saliva. I must be old-fashioned in my thinking that staying alive is kinda important.

There are a lot of things that, had they been there, could have convinced me to up this to two stars. One star ratings make me feel sucky. But I'm sorry guys, I wasn't even entertained. The beginning was intriguing but there was so little plot beyond the romance that it quickly became tedious. I hated the prose, I felt nothing either way for the characters, this series ends here for me."

"Shat­ter Me, oth­er­wise known as: When Cre­ative Writ­ing Class Goes Wrong.

I am all for exper­i­men­tal writ­ing, for stretch­ing your abil­i­ties and try­ing to find fresh ways to express ideas. Occa­sion­ally you end up with genius, but most of the time you result in pre­ten­tious, awk­ward prose that stick in the prover­bial craw of read­ers. This book is that writ­ing. There are plenty of exam­ples that I can give as evi­dence �� but I shall stick with two rel­a­tively short ones:

“His eyes scan the sil­hou­ette of my struc­ture and the slow motion makes my heart race. 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.��

The absence of courage? Are you fuck­ing kid­ding me? We have a word for that. I believe that is almost the dic­tio­nary def­i­n­i­tion of the word cow­ard. I would explain what was wrong with the rest of the para­graph too but I want to keep this review to a 10,000 word the­sis at max.

“I always won­der about raindrops.

I won­der about how they’re always falling down, trip­ping over their own feet, break­ing their legs and for­get­ting their para­chutes as they tum­ble right out of the sky toward an uncer­tain end.��

…r�������.

I get, artis­ti­cally, that Mafi wanted to expose her read­ers to the mind of a girl whose san­ity is frag­ile and ques­tion­able, and that she’s try­ing to show this through the prose. I don’t think the effect works or is done par­tic­u­larly well. I think the work­ings of a trou­bled mind would result in more than bad analo­gies and a bunch of num­bers. Despite the fact that Juliette’s back­story and premise is inter­est­ing, we still end up with the same mun­dane, cookie-cutter hero­ine that can be seen in the vast major­ity of Young Adult lit­er­a­ture. The only thing insane about this novel is how pre­dictable and trite it is.


It would not be com­pletely unrea­son­able to ques­tion my san­ity in regards to read­ing Young Adult novels.

When are pop­u­lar young adult authors going to pro­vide more to the char­ac­ter­i­za­tion of their main pro­tag­o­nists than: Irre­sistible, unique out­sider, in love with a guy?

Can’t male pro­tag­o­nists have other qual­i­ties than: in love with main char­ac­ter, hot, tragic back­story to illicit exces­sive brooding?

The entire premise of Shat­ter Me promised some­thing dif­fer­ent and new. Yet we still end up with the same bland old fare.

The plot and pac­ing is awk­ward and cum­ber­some. Even when sit­u­a­tions are sup­posed to be tense, there is a sense of bore­dom and pre­dictabil­ity. I feel sad that this is yet again, another dis­ap­point­ing dystopian Young Adult novel that will join its sis­ters in the Mediocre Hall of I Can’t Be Stuffed.

But, if you do decide to visit, at least you get a free shirt!





One last thing (view spoiler)[�� the end­ing? That pissed me off the most! Xavier’s school for Mutants in Rebel­lion of the Oppres­sive Dystopian Régime? FML! And the suit, using that word loosely, that they pro­vide for her at the end? Yeah, that’s great��



Doesn’t EVERY woman look at this suit and just say to them­selves, “Yes! I can’t wait to wear this! This doesn’t objec­tify me as a woman, degrade me as a human being and make an embar­rass­ment out of every­one involved. Not. At. All.

It’s like the mutant ver­sion of fan­tasy armour for women. And as we all know, .�� (hide spoiler)]



This review also appears on my blog, .

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