**Jumble Your Genres Review ~ Shatter Me ~ Tahereh Mafi**

Yay! I completed my first book as part of this challenge! And I finally...yes, finally read the awesomeness that is Shatter Me.

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Shatter Me by Tahereh Mafi

Shatter Me #1

Release Date: November 15, 2011

Genre: YA Dystopian

Rating: 5 Bookworms!

Synopsis

"You can't touch me," I whisper.

I'm lying, is what I don't tell him.

He can touch me, is what I'll never tell him.

But things happen when people touch me.

Strange things.

Bad things.

No one knows why Juliette's touch is fatal, but The Reestablishment has plans for her. Plans to use her as a weapon.

But Juliette has plans of her own.

After a lifetime without freedom, she's finally discovering a strength to fight back for the very first time—and to find a future with the one boy she thought she'd lost forever.

I can't believe I've held onto this book for 3 years!! I had such greatness just sitting there unread. I now understand what everyone has been saying about this book. Whoa!

What if the very thing you crave is the one thing you can never have?

Juliette Ferrars is cursed to never touch another human, or to be touched. For the past 3 years, she's been in an asylum for accidentally breaking that rule. She's spent her whole life a prisoner of her curse. No one has ever cared for Juliette - least of all her parents. And her deepest desire is for a friend. Then she gets a roommate. A boy with familiar blue eyes. And Juliette's life changes. After counting endless seconds, wishing for something, it all changes at break-neck speed.

Adam Kent...*sigh* Adam seems to want to befriend Juliette from the start. He's kind and attempts to draw her out. Once things start to change, Juliette isn't sure she can trust him. But Adam makes a gesture of compassion which assures her he is trustworthy, not to mention swoon-worthy. The more time Adam and Juliette and the more revelations that are made, the stronger the bond between them. Adam is integral in Juliette finding the strength within herself.

Warner is the guy in charge of Sector 45. He's been researching and seeking out Juliette because of what he considers her gift. Of course, he wants to use it to his advantage. He's admittedly a bad guy - he lies, he kills - but there's something underneath that powerful persona - some redeeming quality. I feel for him. 

Shatter Me was exactly what it was billed as - riveting, tense, mysterious, exciting - I couldn't put it down! (Luckily, my hubby was home and able to shuttle the kids around.) The setting is a dystopian society and although we don't spend much time outside the asylum or Sector 45's compound, Ms. Mafi did a tremendous job creating the bleak world the characters inhabit. This stark landscape where the sky is always gray, birds no longer fly, where the landscape is always a dead brown, is a result of humans having destroyed it. The Reestablishment says it's attempting to restore order but it must first eradicate everything that it believes caused the problems in the first place. Ms. Mafi built a world that brilliantly conveyed the dark devastation and fear that prevailed.

The writing is poetic perfection. It's fresh, it's lyrical, and it's gorgeous. Ms. Mafi uniquely expressed a commonality among all humans...the need to belong. I could wax poetic for days about all the reasons you should read Shatter Me. Instead, I'll say if you have not yet read it, rectify the situation immediately! But make sure you have some time to dedicate to it because you won't want to put it down until your finished.