Reviews with content warning for Violence - Shatter Me

I feel kind of unsure how to rate this. Essentially, the story itself didn't do much for me, but I found it really compelling - I wanted to keep reading it and I was a bit disappointed to come to the end.

I love the writing style. I think it does very well at bringing the reader into the chaos and intensity of Juliette's mind as a traumatised, terrified teenager, and the writing becomes more or less frantic with her emotions. Oddly, there is a note at the start of the book explaining this narrative technique, which I can't blame the writer for because it's just as, if not more, likely to have been the publisher's idea. Bit of a shame, though - like explaining the punchline to a joke. Nonetheless, I think that's what drew me in to the narrative: the way that Juliette's feelings are expressed is lovely and makes her feel more human.

The romance with Adam was okay. I think it's a bit weird that he found out he could touch her unharmed because he was caressing her in her sleep when she was having nightmares, but his feelings for her come off as sincere. I think she genuinely loves him but sometimes I couldn't help but think that surely, affection from nearly anyone will feel amazing and that could make her think she's in love even if she isn't. I mean, you only have to look at her weirdly conflicting emotions towards War Criminal Warner to see that.

Ah, yes, War Criminal Warner. He's a pervert and a pathetic nepotism baby and likes to kill people for fun. He turns up to be emotionally abusive and sexually inappropriate towards Juliette, intending on grooming her into his weapon/consort. She inexplicably still thinks he's hot. Sometimes, it feels like this book is resisting the urge to become Baby's First Dark Romance and go down his route.

Towards the end, when she and Adam have escaped and later get caught, Warner has found out he can also touch her without being hurt, and so starts being even more handsy than usual. She spots a gun in his inside coat pocket and decides to go with it despite her discomfort just long enough to get the gun and shoot him, which is a bit of a girlboss move. So he's making out with her and picking her up by the arse and all this and she starts off being "ew yucky nasty Warner, this isn't my One and Only True Love Adam" and then thinks "...actually, I'm kinda into this". What??? I know that sort of thing is a trope in dark romance as a genre, but that is one of the reasons I do not read dark romance. The whole "this is sexual assault but actually I like it" thing is just gross to me. If you're into it as a fantasy and within the constrains of fiction, I can't stop you, but it's not my cup of tea at all.

Although I see how Adam can be viewed as a bit bland (he is), Warner is, like, bland with a bit of black pepper. I have a soft spot for pathetic men and for crazy sadistic characters, albeit typically not in romance, but he's just not very sexy about it. He's just a bit sad, to me. I don't care if his eyes are light green or whatever.

Juliette is incredibly horny in general. It's kind of funny sometimes. She'll experience the most traumatising shit you can think of and then Adam will touch her arms and she'll be like "oh YEAH babey". To be fair, though, she is the most touch-starved person of all time, so maybe that's not that weird.

This isn't a criticism, but a thing I noticed that I found strange. So, Juliette has been given maybe one small meal a day for the best part of a year, and presumably must be terribly underweight and look like she's on death's door. Even after eating normally for a couple of weeks, she's probably not looking exactly healthy. That's whatever in itself, that's just the nature of being imprisoned in an inhumane asylum. But there're consistent reminders of how tiny and little and small Juliette is that... well, it kind of gave me the ick. Look, I've got a height complex three times my size, so I'm not a fan of big height differences personally. I don't want to feel even shorter than I am. But with the context meaning she's probably very very skinny and frail as well, it made me a bit uncomfy. I don't know if this is just a straight woman thing that I don't get, a romance trope that I wouldn't have come across, or if the writer has a mild macro/micro kink that's coming through or what, which is why, even if I didn't like it, I don't mean it as critique. It just stood out to me.

The ending left more questions than answers because it's part of a series. That's fair.

Still, I like that she found a community with other people with powers similar to hers. I think that's cool.

I don't know if I'll read the other books, though. I'm kind of happy imagining that she lived safe and happily with Adam and it's all okay now, but then it was a fun book to read even if my review probably comes across as miserable so hey, we'll see!

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abbyycadabbyy's review against another edition

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adventurous emotional reflective sad fast-paced

4.0

Oh. My. God. I was so excited to start this series, it didn’t disappoint. There were a few things that I wasn’t a fan of that I will talk about later

Juliette. I have mixed feelings about her. I felt like she was a little “pick me” at times, but I almost couldn’t blame her because of everything she has been through. I thought a little closer to the end she got better. There was something about her that bothered me and I can’t quite put my finger on it. Her power is super intense. I wish we got to see it a little bit more.

Adam. Holy shit, I CANNOT STAND his stinky dinky ass. He only cares about himself and his feelings. He does reckless stuff and doesn’t care who or what he hurts in the process. I feel like he is a horrible person for Juliette. He brings her down as a character. They didn’t even talk in school yet he sacrificed his whole life and career for his fantasy of Juliette. The only reason he “loves” Juliette is based off of her looks. The only credit I can give him is that he is a good older brother.

Warner. I feel like he is mad out to be this monster, but her really isn’t. Let me explain. Now here is a real man, who actually cares about Juliette’s wellbeing. He wants Juliette to embrace her full potential and not be put in some asylum and treated like a monster. He wants her to have self love and confidence in who she is. Warner doesn’t know her but he wants to, that’s why he takes her out and walked around with her, and shows her stuff. He doesn’t comment about her looks as much as Adam does. I think he just is an overall better man. Adam is dog shit compared to Warner.

Kenji. He is a comedic gift from god. I love him and we really haven’t gotten that much of him.

The world building in this book was so good. It was super easy to understand. I felt like I could easily visualize the setting.

There is one other thing that bothered me. I thought that Juliette was supposed to be special but

other people have powers.

I am going right into the next books. I can’t wait to see how this story will progress. I can see how series will be 5 stars.

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hellxriver's review against another edition

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adventurous emotional medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

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faitherslibrary's review against another edition

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adventurous dark emotional mysterious fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.25

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lizzye33's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging dark emotional hopeful inspiring mysterious reflective sad tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

4.5

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nyree42's review against another edition

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adventurous dark mysterious tense fast-paced

3.5

Fast-paced and exciting. I kind of don't want to get sucked into the entire long series... but I *am* curious about what happens next, so we'll see.
The narration style would have been grating but I hadn't read anything written that way in a long time, so instead of being annoying it helped place me into the character's perspective, as it was meant to.

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meeklovestoread's review against another edition

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adventurous funny lighthearted mysterious medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.75

I've been putting this series off for so long, but I've finally decided to give in to the hype and see what it was about. And now I'm finished I can understand how this series has garnered intrigue. I think the first book was a nice little introduction to the world and provide just enough level of mystery

Like how can Adam touch Juliette? How can Warner? What does that mean? How do some people in their world have supernatural abilities? Will Juliette see her parents again? What happened to Adam's parents? And Kenji's? How did their world get like this? And most importantly how does Warner become Juliette's future love interest?

and suspense for the reader to want to continue.

Also, I don't know if it was because I haven't read fantasy-type books since I was in grade school, but it was kind of hard to visualize some of the settings in their world.

And I can't help but confess that I'm curious about the Aaron Warner hype that has been circling the internet and that has become the centerpiece of this series. Because of what I've been reading so far I couldn't imagine how things could turn around.

He literally forced himself on her (trying to kiss her). Forcing her to love him and be his secret weapon of destruction. And as of right now, he's trying to kill her. I just can't fathom how he's gonna be her future love interest.

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nienora's review against another edition

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fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Loveable characters? No

2.5

Spoilers, sort of.

It had potential. A girl who can't touch anyone. Do you know how many almost touching but pulling back at the last second scenes we could've had? All the yearning, tension. And we got nothing.
Pretty instantly they realised she can touch main love interest and that's only thing they do for the rest of the book. I didn't think you could make shower scene not hot, but here we are.

Worldbuilding is there, at least at the very beginning and it's never mentioned again. Apparently there was an apocalypse and birds disappeared from the world, that's about it. I guess there wasn't any room left, since the focus was on their dumb love story, even tho they have absolutely no chemistry.

There was about a milion dumb metaphores that made absolutely no sense and were there just to sound smart and deep. – "He's more wrong than an upside-down rainbow "
There's one POV, it's written in first person. We're literally inside of main character's head. Why is there so many crossed out lines? And if you have to write "I'm not insane" about 200 times (I'm not even exaggerating), you probably are.
I know it's (relatively) old book, but why did anyone ever decided to give positions of power to literal teenagers. And no 19 year old guy would ever use "sweetheart" or "love".

PS: If you're already going to shoot someone, stop for a second and shoot them in the head one more time, just to be safe. So they won't magically come back from the dead later.

I can't wait to see how Warner was a good guy all along and Adam was a jerk.
Sane person wouldn't continue this series..

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