Tag: Tahereh Mafi

Marshmallow has already reviewed Shatter Me and Unravel Me, the first two books of Tahereh Mafi’s Shatter Me trilogy. Today she talks about the third and last book of the series, Ignite Me, published first in 2014. As Sprinkles finds this series interesting, she is asking questions and taking notes.

(The author wrote a handful of short novellas later within the same story world, that were interspersed into the timeline of the three original books. Then she wrote three more books to continue the main story line. But when Ignite Me was published, it was presented as the end of the series.)

Sprinkles: So Marshmallow, you are finally done with the third book in the series. How do you feel?

Marshmallow: Relieved.

S: Yes, some of the conflicts and the main problems of the series have finally been resolved, right?

M: Yes, mostly.

S: So can you tell us a bit about the main plot?

M: This book starts about when the second book, Unravel Me, ended. So Juliette and Warner are going to take on the Reestablishment. And Omega Point, where Juliette’s friends in the resistance were living, is now destroyed. So Juliette is really angry and wants revenge.

S: I can understand that.

M: It turns out that her friends are not all dead, but the destruction was pretty extensive. But the main thrust of the book is about how Juliette and Warner figure out how they will take down the Reestablishment.

S: So wait, perhaps we should say that people should read the first two books if they want to get anything out of this book.

M: Yes, definitely. I expect that the two novellas would also be useful, but I have not read those yet, and so they are not as necessary.

S: Okay. From what I understand, Destroy Me and Fracture Me mainly complemented the stories told in the other books. But of course since we have not read them, we cannot say for sure what we are missing.

M: Yes. But I felt like diving into this book after Unravel Me felt alright.

S: Okay. So now we know that the author wrote several other books after this one, but when this one was published, it was promoted as the end of the Shatter Me books. Did it feel that way to you?

M: In a way, maybe a not totally satisfying way, but it was an end. I mean, the main conflict is resolved. And when the book ends, Juliette and her friends are at the beginning of a new world, in some sense. But there is a lot to do. How are they going to save the world?

S: So in some sense, the author was probably right to write a few more books to tell us those stories too, no?

M: I suppose. I mean, in a lot of books, it is like, there is a big struggle, and eventually the bad guys are dead and gone, and then what? I think the next books probably tell that part of the story. The then what part.

S: Yes, that seems to be the case, from what I am understanding when I read things on the web about the other books in the series.

M: So it is in that sense not quite an ending.

S: Maybe a good place to pause.

M: Yes, one could say that.

S: I know you felt very strongly about the main character Juliette.

M: Yes, I actually disliked her, especially in this book. And I know that there are a lot of readers who love her and think she is so vulnerable and compassionate despite all that has happened to her, but to me she does not really feel very compassionate, especially in this book. She seems quite self-absorbed and not very empathetic. She cannot understand how other people might be in pain. For example, after the destruction of Omega Point, she is all angry and wants revenge, but she does not seem to register how her friends are in pain and mourning and so broken.

S: I can see you really do not find her a very compelling character.

M: I would not say that. I would say “likeable”. I do think she is compelling, I want to learn what she is going through, I want to continue to read her story, but I do not think I like her, you know?

S: I see.

M: I am also quite upset about her relationships with Adam and Warner.

S: I know you said this book is even mushier than the other two books. Is that what you mean?

M: Well, not just that. I felt like Adam and Juliette had a relationship that seemed more based on human qualities and emotions and affection, while Warner and Juliette seem to simply be physically attracted to one another. I mean, Juliette tries to rationalize things by saying that Adam was holding her back from her power, and fulfilling her potential, and how Warner was actually a good person but he had been deeply wounded by his father, but I am not sure I buy all of that.

S: Okay, I did not read this third book just yet, but I do agree with you that her relationship with Warner seemed almost purely physical to me, too, from the start. Then again, to me, Juliette does not seem to be much of a thinking and feeling character.

M: Wait, she is a very feeling character! She has a lot of emotions!

S: I agree. What I meant was that she had only strong passions, not really affection, care, sympathy, empathy, and so on.

M: Okay, something like that. She does not strike me as a nice person really. In the dystopian world the book is set in, everyone has suffered so much. Juliette herself was locked up by herself for over two hundred days. However, she sometimes seems to forget that everyone else in the story has also suffered as much as her.

Juliette annoys me somewhat in the same way that Sophie from the School for Good and Evil books did. But then again Sophie at some point decides to be a villain and she is a good villain. Juliette is a hero, but her romantic life is so much at the center of everything that her heroic development is not really fulfilled.

S: Well, this is supposed to be a romance.

M: Yes, I understand the author is writing a romance here, but I really really wished that she would focus more on the world falling apart and these young people trying to put it back together. I really found the world-building and the plot to be very compelling, but maybe I am not the right reader for a romance. I felt the characters were not developed enough, other than romantically.

S: I can totally see that. I think the author’s writing voice is fluid, and she uses a very emphatic and evocative language.

M: Yes, I agree with that. I think her writing is really beautiful. But I really wished the plot and character development were more front and center rather than the romance …

S: You wanted a full-blown dystopian novel, nothing mushy!

M: I think I can handle some mushy, and actually, I think that romantic relationships in books, especially in series where the protagonists are growing up, can add a lot to the character development and can be really meaningful. For example, in the Harry Potter books, I think the romantic parts were not bad but made the characters more realistic and more endearing. In the Percy Jackson books, some of the romantic moments are really cute and show what a healthy relationship between young people could look like. In these cases, I think that these romantic relationships are not just beneficial to the characters and the plot, but almost necessary for the sake of realism and make the entire series / book more enjoyable and memorable. However, in this book series, I felt like the romantic aspect invaded the entire plot of the story, putting any character development or plot line in the back seat. When I started reading this series, I was expecting an epic saga about a group of brave teenagers facing down an unjust government while confronting their inner demons and trauma with a side serving of romantic relationships. I was unhappy to find that the romantic side of the story took over the entire series, with more than half of the book being spent on Juliette’s romantic life. The romance part could have been important for character development, but I felt like it was not. And it stole away time from other aspects and made the plot and resolution of the book series feel like an afterthought.

S: I think I get it. So I am guessing your rating for this book will not be 100%.

M: No. In fact, I’d rather not rate it. I think I was not the right reader for this book. I did not expect the romance to so much overwhelm the main dystopian plot line. The plot had a lot of potential and I felt like the romance stunted it. So if a reader is looking for teen romance with a strong serving of teen angst in the middle of a catastrophic environmental breakdown of the world order, maybe this is the book for them.

S: Fair enough. I think I will read the book, too, so I can make up my own mind about it.

M: Yes, I hope you do so we can talk more about the book together.

S: Sounds like a plan. So maybe we can wrap up this review. What would you tell our readers?

M: Stay tuned for more amazing reviews from the book bunnies!

One of the last books Marshmallow reviewed for 2022 was Tahereh Mafi’s novel Shatter Me. As her first book for 2023, she chose the second book in the series: Unravel Me, published first in 2013. As Sprinkles is curious to hear more about this book, she is asking questions and taking notes.

Sprinkles: So Marshmallow, here we are; it’s a new year, and there are lots of new books to read and write and talk about. Today we are talking about the second book in Tahereh Mafi’s Shatter Me series: Unravel Me. Your review of the first book made me so curious that I went ahead and read it myself. And I enjoyed it a lot. So now I want to ask you about this second book. Should I read it?

Marshmallow: It depends. The plot of the second book is very interesting. Just like the plot of the first book.

S: That sounds enticing.

M: Yes, the plot is really neat.

S: Tell me a bit about that.

M: Well, maybe I should first summarize the first book a bit. There is this girl named Juliette, whose touch is fatal to most people. She has been living in solitary confinement for many years because many people, including her parents, are scared of her. Then we learn that there are some people who can actually touch her and not die. And one of these is a rebel, and he helps her run away, and we end the first book on a high note, with Juliette and her new friends ready to fight an oppressive regime.

S: Yes, I remember all this. And the world is pretty dismal, right? There are no birds, there is a total environmental collapse, and people are living under the control of a faceless dystopian government.

M: Well, not quite faceless, because we meet one of its faces, Warner, in the first book, and he is one of the leaders of this new regime.

S: True. Do we see Warner in this second book as well?

M: Yes, and he is attracted to Juliette, and somehow Juliette is very confused, and she is not sure if she is attracted right back, even though Warner is a pretty terrible human being.

S: Hmm, here we are getting too close to the mushy stuff you didn’t like in the first book. I’m assuming that there is a lot of mushy stuff in this one, too?

M: Yes, this one has more actually.

S: Hmm, okay, I know it bothers you, so let us move on and talk about the actual plot a bit.

M: Sure. First off, we learned at the end of the last book that Juliette’s killing touch is kind of like a superpower, and she is not the only one with these kinds of powers. There are many others who have superpowers, and they are living together, working to bring down the oppressive regime. And in this book, they are continuing to do that, with Juliette and Adam, the person who saved her, joining them.

S: I see.

S: So would you say, at this point, that the book becomes more like a typical heroic adventure book where our heroes are fighting an evil empire and will surely overcome against all odds?

M: Well, not quite. For two reasons. One is the mushy part, the book is more romance than adventure. And two, the “surely they will overcome” is definitely not a sure thing. Things are pretty desperate, I mean, they make some progress in this book, but the world is still a terrible place.

S: Do we ever see a bird?

M: I don’t think so. The world is still pretty bad, as I said. And there is still very little hope.

S: So I am guessing you might just have to read the next book?

M: I just might.

S: And from what you are telling me, I guess I do have to read this second book myself.

M: Yup. I think you have a higher tolerance for mushy stuff.

S: Well, they call me a grownup. I guess I can handle a little bit of that.

M: I guess.

S: So how would you rate the book then?

M: 93% I think. The plot is still very original and engrossing, but the mushiness is still not terribly exciting to me.

S: Alright, given what you told us already, this makes sense. So what do you want to tell our readers as we are wrapping things up?

M: Stay tuned for more amazing reviews from the book bunnies!

A couple weeks ago, while Marshmallow was writing her review of Miss Peregrine’s Home For Peculiar Children, she and Sprinkles looked up some information on the author, Ransom Riggs, and learned that he is married to a fellow author, Tahereh Mafi, who has a significant following of her own. When the bunnies learned about her first novel, Shatter Me (2011), they were intrigued by its plot, and so they decided to check it out. What follows is Marshmallow’s review of this book.

Sprinkles: So Marshmallow, you read this book rather quickly.

Marshmallow: You know I am a quick reader.

S: That’s true. What did you think about this book?

M: Let me first tell you what the book is about. No?

S: Okay.

M: The book is about a girl named Juliette who is living in a special institution, in solitary confinement, because her touch is deadly to other people. And she is living in a strange world, kind of dystopian.

S: That really sounds intriguing! So how old is Juliette?

M: She’s seventeen I think.

S: Okay. Do we ever learn why her touch is deadly? That is a weird condition.

M: Sort of, towards the end, but I won’t tell. You do need to read it yourself.

S: I am going to, for sure. I’m very curious.

M: Well, you won’t learn everything. But you will have a better idea of things. This is the first of a series of several books.

S: I see. Does it stand alone on its own?

M: Well, some of the conflicts and problems in the book are resolved, but many others pop up, and when the book ends, you are kind of left hanging, and need to read the next book. And then probably the next. And so on.

S: Hmm. Well, let me read this first and then see if I want to continue. How about you? Do you want to read the next book? Are you curious about what will happen to Juliette and her world? Did you like her as a character?

M: She is a bit too much into romance for my taste. Maybe it makes sense because she cannot touch anyone, until she meets this one person that she can. So I can see how she might be very excited, but then things do get a bit very touchy, kissy, and so on.

S: Hmm, so probably the book would not be very appropriate for bunnies younger than 12.

M: Hmm, maybe even older than that.

S: I guess we are seeing one of the differences between middle grades and young adult literature.

M: I think that’s right.

S: So let us get back to the plot. So she is in this confined space, but then she meets this one other person who can touch her and not be hurt. Does she ever get out?

M: Yes, there are some folks who want to use her as a weapon. One specific guy especially, and so they help her get out. And the rest of the book is about her learning about these people who want to use her, about the power structure around her, and so on. It is a dystopian world, reminds me a bit about Nineteen Eighty-Four by George Orwell.

S: Yes, you used that word, dystopian, before. But what did you mean?

M: There is an oppressive regime. People have messed up the planet, and a group took charge claiming they’d help, they call it the Reestablishment, but they have not really. And they have erased all other power structures, all other institutions, and so on. Pretty depressing actually.

S: That makes for an interesting setting, I can see that.

M: Yes, I did want to know more, and maybe in the later books, Juliette and her friends will fight the Reestablishment and maybe take them down.

S: Yes, something to look forward to, I’m sure. So tell me a bit about the style of the book.

M: Sure. The whole book is written from a first-person perspective, Juliette’s. And she has a very distinctive voice.

S: How so?

M: When she uses numbers, she does not spell them out even when they are small numbers. She always uses the numerals. Except the chapter numbers in the book; those are all spelled out. She always writes in present tense. And she crosses out things and corrects herself. Of course you can still read what she wrote originally, so that makes her voice different from many other narrators I read.

S: I skimmed through it and I did see some lines crossed out. Even on the title page, there is a part which I am assuming is Juliette saying: MY TOUCH IS LETHAL, crossed out, and followed by MY TOUCH IS POWER. That is really interesting. Then the book reads kind of like a diary, right?

M: Yes, though, apparently, she also has a diary, but this is not quite the diary, I think. I’m not sure actually.

S: Okay, I am now really curious to read the book. Let us wrap this up so I can take it from your paws and get started. How would you rate the book in the end?

M: I’d rate it 90%. I really like the plot, I like the author’s writing style, and I really really want to learn more about Juliette and her story, but the mushy stuff is not terribly exciting for me.

S: That makes sense to me Marshmallow, thanks. What do you want to say to our readers as we close this up?

M: Stay tuned for more amazing reviews from the book bunnies!