Reviews with content warning for Gun violence - Shatter Me

Reviews tagging 'Gun violence'

Shatter Me by Tahereh Mafi

241 reviews

looloo_01's review against another edition

adventurous challenging emotional hopeful mysterious tense fast-paced

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

3.75

17 aug 2023: I really loved it!! It felt like a movie the whole time I read it and I just can’t wait to have the rest of the serie!! 5⭐️

14 aug 2024: wasn’t as good as I remembered (probably because I don’t like Adam) 3.75⭐️

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neverlandpages4's review against another edition

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adventurous dark emotional funny mysterious sad fast-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

4.0

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claireemessina's review against another edition

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fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

1.0

Major props to the Shatter Me fandom for even getting me to pick up this book. I can see how I am 100% not the right audience for this book (despite my love of YA dystopian novels). In case you are questioning reading this and you felt in a similar position as me, please note that the writing is juvenile (Juliette is a 17 yo, not a 13 yo…who writes like this?!) and the logic is so flawed. I cannot comprehend how a relationship manifested itself between Adam and Juliette? And why is there even a touch of sympathy for a psycho like Warner? Make it make sense, please.

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holiday7's review against another edition

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adventurous dark emotional fast-paced

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

3.25

Honestly, this was pretty good. But I'm not sure if I'm going to continue the series. The writing is kind of bland and there are tons of words that just don't add anything and are there just to be there. So, that's one part I don't like about it.

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usjdjfnnffm2737's review against another edition

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challenging dark emotional mysterious 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? Yes

3.5

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kk_reads2's review against another edition

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adventurous dark mysterious slow-paced

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

4.25

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vickeyreads's review against another edition

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adventurous emotional reflective sad tense medium-paced

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

4.0

This is one of my first dystopian I’ve read and tbh I enjoyed it more than I have found other dystopians in the past. Overrall I enjoyed the book. Altho it doesn’t come without it’s flaws.
So far I really like the setting and I really like the twist when

it is revealed that the reestablishment lies about the resources that are available on earth.

I really like the writing style as it’s easy to follow and yet very engaging and quite far from boring.
About the characters
I found the protagonist Juliette to be extremely dramatic. While I could understand her as she has gone through.

as she did kill a young boy when she was 14. Or was extremely lonely while she was at school

Personally, I was mixed about Adam as I found him to be romantic at first. But the more I read about him the more I was disgusted by his character. As he only likes Juliette bc of her looks and doesn’t talk to her much to get to know her.

while yes he knows a lot about her past. I feel it would’ve been better if he were to ask her about it himself and get to know her that way. Not only that he takes advantage of the fact that Juliette doesn’t talk to to many people so he just talks to her about how other people are bad to make himself look better. I also hated the fact that Adam left his 10 year old brother alone for 6 months just to chase after Juliette.

About Warner, at first I wasn’t a huge fan of him because I found him to be extremely controlling of Juliette. However and I still do not like this aspect of Warner and I can find him to be cruel at times. But I will admit I believe he is doing what he believes is best for Juliette because I do think he does care about her a lot. And in some respects he’s better for Juliette because he doesn’t pretend to be better than he is and he does things to get to know Juliette himself. Like go on walks and the fact he wants Juliette’s consent to continue forward with some of his plans with her.
I really found Kenji to be funny and added a lot of personality to the group. And overall I’m excited to see him more in “Unravel Me”
I thought the plot was interesting throughout the entire book which is why I give it 4 stars!!

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matidareads's review against another edition

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adventurous dark emotional reflective tense medium-paced

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

3.5

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foxo_cube's review against another edition

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adventurous dark mysterious fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.25

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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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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