Reviews with content warning for Sexual assault - Shatter Me

Reviews tagging 'Sexual assault'

Shatter Me by Tahereh Mafi

53 reviews

night0wl_23's review against another edition

slow-paced

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

2.0

I’m gonna be so brutally honest, I hated this book. I feel like I’ve lost braincells.

If you want to read a shitty instant “I would die and kill for you” (in a bad way) romance with 0 chemistry and the tiniest hint of a dystopian setting with a side of nothing, go ahead - this was definitely not my cup of tea, and it should probably stay in 2011.

I will however probably keep reading the series cause like, I’ve got the books already and this is a very easy read + it’s mildly entertaining with how bad it is lmao

I’ll probably come back and edit this review as I gather my thoughts on what exactly went wrong here

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mfh413's review against another edition

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dark sad medium-paced

1.5

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overduck's review against another edition

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adventurous hopeful reflective 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

3.5

Middle school me was obsessed with this book. Adult me skimmed a significant amount of it (Juliette is quite the over-narrator), but was not disappointed by the Warner content. In my opinion, while not a bad book, this is one you have to get through so you can get to the ones later on.

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laleh_eve's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging dark emotional hopeful inspiring mysterious sad tense fast-paced

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

4.25

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yzer2468's review against another edition

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adventurous funny mysterious 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

2.5

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lolajh's review against another edition

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dark emotional medium-paced

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

2.0

I’m so confused on who the target audience is for this???? There’s scenes like

Warner making Juliette torture that baby

but then it’s written so much like a child 😭😭 The writing is seriously so underdeveloped and irritating, like with the weird repetition of words with no commas like “I want to be angry angry angry” or similes and metaphors that make no sense (not to mention the sheer amount of times the word shatter was mentioned dude) and it all took away from an admittedly promising premise of a story but just with poor execution. Like the concept of this 1984-esque dystopian world and Juliette

among many others

having this dangerous condition and a traumatic upbringing and her whole experience in the asylum was all very promising, like I loved the beginning of this book. I really just think the romance ruined it a bit. I feel like the book would have really benefited from the delving into and working on of Juliette’s trauma and that she recovered her sense of self independently from others before diving into romance. It was just very strange to me to have these raw and emotional scenes with Juliette and Adam and then

having near-sex scenes in a fucking tank or in the very next room to Adam’s ten year old brother???? I especially found that shower scene so incredibly strange because of how quick it escalated from Juliette baring so much emotion and trauma to then Adam picking her up and putting her in the shower and then kissing her?? Like I do think Adam all in all is an ‘okay’ guy, apart from him ignoring Juliette’s consent to not touch her several times but most of their romance scenes were just so off putting in context.

And let’s talk about fucking Warner. I’ve read the descriptions of later books in the series and have seen him alllllll over tiktok so I know how things with him end up going, but right now he is anything but redeemable in my eyes. He’s psychotic and creepy, and his advances towards Juliette are nothing but rape-y.

Juliette accepting his advances before shooting him was assault. She didn’t have any choice at all; it was either let Warner…do that, or she would die. And I fucking hate that in that scene, Juliette starts to enjoy it, that she hadn’t, what, realised that she wanted it? That’s a dangerous thing to portray for sure, because that’s how rapists think! In my eyes, there is so way in hell their relationship can develop to be something where they can end up together in a healthy manner. I don’t care if he’s traumatised or has the ability to “change”, there is no coming back from that. He’s scary and I probably will be dropping this series because I cannot even handle that happening.

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otterspond's review against another edition

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fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes

4.0

tw// very brief mention of rape (only in the section with spoilers)
I went into this expecting a truly, beautifully trashy experience. I was in a reading slump and needed something to pick me back up. now, was it essentially just a rehashing of dystopia tropes from the 2010s? Absolutely. did that negatively impact my experience of the book at all? No. Its well written, some truly gorgeous use of language, fast paced plot and interesting characters.

admittedly i truly believed from how quick and seeminly one dimensional the central relationship was that Adam was gonna turn out to be evil but maybe thats just my inherent distrust of men.

on that subject - the creepy, rapey way that warner acts truly made my skin crawl. a truly exellent villain.

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