Reviews with content warning for Suicidal thoughts - Imagine Me

I felt as if this was a rather anticlimactic finish to such an amazing series. It didn’t feel as if the stakes were high and everything got resolved so fast. I get why Juliette thought of Anderson as attractive considering her past with Warner, but it’s still a bit weird. Especially how it’s just glossed over and never mentioned again. And her having her mind erased also had zero consequence at all and it pisses me off a bit ngl cuz all Warner had to was kiss her but like that’s not okay in terms of storytelling. Why even have that plot point of her not remembering for then to be resolved within 20 pages and with zero effort. Every villain died too easily and there wasn’t much of a fight at all, and that’s partly cuz none of the main characters ever die so I never got the feeling of the world ending. The book also never states how they took back control, how they were ruling the world or anything, it just ends with Juliette crying over a dog. There is no real finish as to what the state of the world is and I found it a bit disappointing. The epilogue- don’t even I can’t believe they couldn’t even get one happy moment- THEIR WEDDING DAY without something (Kenji) ruining it like bro they’ve been through so much just let them be happy for once.

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najmanasir's review against another edition

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adventurous dark emotional 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

3.25

Originally, I wanted to rate this 4 stars, but now I want to give it a 3-3.5 rating due to lack of action building. A few major scenes felt anti-climatic to me when I expected to read a whole battle scene. The first scene I expected more from was

Warner fighting Juliette and trying to get her back. It felt uncanny to read that Warner was fighting with Juliette, led her away to corner her, and then had a make-out session which was how he brought her back. The way he brought her back didn't seem fitting to me when I wanted to read a battle between them and Warner expressing his feelings for her to inspire a change in her mental state and bring various memories in and out of her mind that would lead to Juliette taking back her mind again.

This change in the scene would've highlighted how difficult it would be for Juliette to get her mind back, considering that her mind was wavering for only brief moments throughout the entire book.

Another moment that felt very anticlimactic was how easily

the Supreme Commanders were falling one by one. I understand that Juliette is meant to be an overpowered character, but there were moments where she was successfully subdued/contained for a few moments rendering her powerless. That said, there could have been a more prolonged battle between her and Max. Max's character is not as strong as Evie's, but he was still willing to fight/contain Juliette to continue with Operation Synthesis. The battle could have lasted longer if the weapons imbued with Adam's power had been utilized more or on a larger scale. The book emphasized the urgency to prevent Adam's ability from being weaponized since all of their powers would be rendered useless. But Max and the rest of the scientists had successfully weaponized Adam's power (and Anderson injected a vile of it in his own body) that it felt disappointing that we didn't get to read how those weapons would have been strategically used against Juliette. Subduing Juliette's powers for even a limited of time would have allowed the readers to understand a new side to her and watch her excel in hand-to-hand combat.

While I do think the weapon wasn't used as much throughout the book due to their plan becoming more faulty from the time constraints and stress; it still felt upsetting not to read a proper fight scene that would have enhanced Juliette's character and brains.

Overall, I still enjoyed the book but wished for more developed action scenes.

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abicaro17's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging dark emotional funny mysterious sad slow-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

If you asked me if I liked this book 300 pages in I would have said no. Honestly this book sucked. Boring and gross and depressing. But Mafi manages to once again make a full recovery in the end. I even cried. I hate to say it but the end was so sweet the whole gross Anderson thing seems less offensive.

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madamenovelist's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging dark emotional reflective 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

3.5

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melist6's review against another edition

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adventurous dark emotional 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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proudtobeabookaholic's review against another edition

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adventurous dark emotional hopeful tense medium-paced

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

3.0

Juliette Ferrars or Ella Sommers - who is she, really? She was born as Ella, but transformed to Juliette, a soldier who obeys order. When the final battle approaches she may not even get to choose which side she wants to fight for.

I think I agree with those who believe this should have stayed a trilogy. I do enjoy hanging with the characters, and since I had long gaps between books 3 and 4, as well as between books 4 and 5, I didn't mind the continuation. But now it wasn't that long ago since I read the fifth book, and I feel like there's quite a lot of repetitions. They win a fight, lose the next, win again... and so on. Not much variation and this book doesn't come with any real surprises either.

I've borrowed the whole series from the library, but I didn't have time to read Imagine Me before I had to bring it back. Instead of waiting until it was available again I decided to listen to it. It wasn't a good choice. We get Juliette's/Ella's, Kenji's and, at the end, Warner's/Aaron's POV's, and the narrator that reads Kenji's chapters has a tendency to be overdramatic. Another thing is that my experience of the language gets different when I listen. Mafi's got a special way with words (at least in this series), and what gets striking in text can get tiresome when hearing it. Imagine the impression you get when you see a whole page written with "I am not insane", just repeating itself. Now imagine the same words narrated by a voice, over and over again, for about a minute. Not really the same thing, is it?

Well, I feel satisfied with having read the whole series now. I would like to read something else by Mafi to see if she always writes like this, or if it's only for these books.

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vibinqvio's review against another edition

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dark emotional sad tense 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? Yes

4.0

Imagine me was my least fav of the whole series. I was annoyed when reading the entire time, waiting for something satisfying to happen. And damn, that one scene with Aaron, I was in tears. Thank god it’s fast-paced and i finished it in like 2.5h reading time. A lot happened, and too much.

this whole juliette-affection-to-anderson thingy was pure disgust. i had to distance myself from my book seeing „You’re very handsome, sir“. No Juliette, no. Just no.

. Anyway, the last 100 pages were the best. The thing i don’t get is… Why is there no warner pov for the majority of the book? It would be great to see his thoughts while those events progressed. Kenji, my beloved, annoyed me in this book. I’m sorry to say and think that, but my dude kenji got on my nerves a lot for the certain things he said. i still love him. aaron broke my heart. That epilogue was adorable and I’m currently reading believe me, which means, i will be leaving the shatter-me universe.

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emma_batty's review

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adventurous dark emotional funny hopeful 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

4.75

To the world she is formidable.
To me?
She is the world. 💖

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