Teen Reads Week: Shatter Me

by:  Tahereh Mafi
published by:  Harper Collins
publish date:  November 15th, 2011

Juliette hasn't touched anyone in exactly 264 days. The last time she did, it was an accident, but The Reestablishment locked her up for murder. No one knows why Juliette's touch is fatal. As long as she doesn't hurt anyone else, no one really cares. The world is too busy crumbling to pieces to pay attention to a 17-year-old girl. Diseases are destroying the population, food is hard to find, birds don't fly anymore, and the clouds are the wrong color.

The Reestablishment said their way was the only way to fix things, so they threw Juliette in a cell. Now so many people are dead that the survivors are whispering war- and The Reestablishment has changed its mind. Maybe Juliette is more than a tortured soul stuffed into a poisonous body. Maybe she's exactly what they need right now.

Juliette has to make a choice: Be a weapon. Or be a warrior.

See that strike-through writing on the cover?  That's throughout the book.  It's a writing technique the author uses to show all the thoughts going through Juliette's mind.  It got old fast, but it was more prevalent in the beginning of the book.  It did seem to taper off towards the end.   That's my main criticism of this book.  It's a clever idea, but a tad bit over done.

I liked this book, it was very X-Men like, but more sinister.  I've seen it mentioned places as a cross between The Hunger Games and X-Men and that's pretty accurate.  It deals with some of the same supernatural aspects as X-Men, but has the atmosphere of The Hunger Games. 

This is the first book in a series.  The film rights have already been optioned for this book, so it'll be interesting to see what the future brings for this debut author.