A review by najmanasir
Imagine Me by Tahereh Mafi

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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