September Secret Reader Review: Shatter Me by Tahereh Mafi

Title: Shatter Me

Author: Tahereh Mafi
Publisher: Harper
Pages: Kindle edition
Rating: 4/5 Stars

Tahereh Mafi should be commended for writing the most first person of first person books that I've read. Mafi puts her readers inside of Juliette's head so completely that some sentences and paragraphs are little more than run on stream of conscious thoughts - that are occasionally crossed out in the same way all of us have tried to cross out or brush aside an errant thought that we don't want to be having. Shatter Me feels like a brilliantly poetic journal, containing some of the most beautiful descriptions, similes and metaphors that I've ever had the pleasure of reading.

Juliette will remind some readers of Rogue from X-men, in that she can kill people with her touch. It's that deadly power that, after years of torment and neglect in a rapidly decaying, dystopian society, catches the attention of the government. The Reestablishment seizes Juliette and holds her prisoner for three years, a year of which is spent in isolation in an insane asylum.

Until one day, Juliette isn't so alone anymore.

A boy joins her in her cell and she's beautifully aware of him in all of the ways that a seventeen year old girl would be aware of a super hot seventeen year old boy.

The plot of Shatter Me is a standard one as far as dystopian novels go - Juliette is special, she has something that the Reestablishment wants and they intend to get it at all costs. She's tempted with promises of luxury and power, but her heart is pure and she rejects it along with Adam - the one boy who can touch her and has always loved her and oh so conveniently gets thrown into a cell with her in the insane asylum.

The plush apartment that is her cell also doesn't have surveillance equipment in the bathroom. Also convenient.

I don't point these things out to mock or detract from Shatter Me, but to highlight what this story is really about and that is Juliette coming into her own after a lifetime of trying to be invisible. Mafi, while inventive with her futuristic dystopia, isn't reinventing the wheel here and she knows it. She makes the wise choice to stay entrenched in Juliette's experience, dolling out details of her world when it matters, rather than in long-winded exposition at the beginning of the book.

To me, the real story picked up about half way through when Juliette and Adam break out of the evil Warner's clutches and escape the Reestablishment's army. They find Adam's brother James and make plans to run off together - until a former soldier, Kenji, shows up on Adam's supposedly top secret door step suffering from a beating and bullet wounds. The timetable on their plans is shortened significantly and they barely get out of the apartment in one piece.

During the chase that follows, Juliette is forced to get over herself, basically, if she wants to survive and by the end, she realizes she wants to do more than survive - for the first time she wants to live.

A downside to Mafi's style is that our view of the world is limited to only what Juliette thinks, sees, hears and feels - even more so than other first person narratives. As a reader, I was thrust into this story without a hint as to what was happening and while I wouldn't call that a bad thing necessarily, in the case of Shatter Me I was left feeling that if you scraped away the fancy prose, the actual story was rather shallow. Typical, I guess, of so many other YA novels where the quiet, overlooked girl with the tortured past grows up and comes into her own.

I don't want to sound like I'm knocking it, because that's not what I'm trying to do. I'm stoked to continue the series and see what happens. Mafi totally surprised me with where our characters ended up and as such I'm not so sure that I know exactly what kind of story she's preparing to tell. That's a very good thing.

I do have to wonder how much more compelling Shatter Me could have been if Mafi had taken a little of the creativity she used in composing her beautiful prose and put it into the plot of her story.

Pushing the Limits by Katie McGarry

Title: Pushing the Limits
Author: Katie McGarry
Publisher: Harlequin Teen
Pages: 392
Rating: 5/5 Stars

Read for August Secret Reader

Welp. I devoured that one.

Can I have more, please?

Pushing the Limits is not my typical read - no supernatural, no fantasy or scifi, no mystery or action - but that didn't stop me from eagerly turning pages until the very end. Katie McGarry didn't reinvent the wheel in terms of setting or plot, but her characters, Echo and Noah in particular, wouldn't let me go.

The plot of Pushing the Limits follows tragic good-girl-with-a-mysterious-past Echo and tragic bad-boy-with-a-violent-past Noah as they're forced together by their mutual guidance counselor and find love and healing across social lines. While the details of Echo's memory loss and scars, as well as what happened to Noah's parents intrigued me, the parts I enjoyed the most were the sessions with Mrs. Collins, the guidance counselor, and the one-on-one time Noah and Echo shared.

I always appreciate authors who write characters - especially teenagers - that are real. McGarry's teenagers drink, smoke, do drugs, have sex, but all in the way that teens do. Echo isn't suddenly a bad girl because she gets drunk at a party and Noah isn't irredeemable because he smokes weed.

I give McGarry kudos for writing a bad boy that actually deserved his reputation. Noah's not a saint. While he might have been on the fast track to All-American Golden Boy status, his parent's death changed everything. He does become (justifiably) violent, he does have a temper, he does sleep with any girl he happens to be interested in, he does smoke weed, he does have tattoos, he swears a lot and he's got very little interest in school and preparing for a future that he doesn't think that he'll have.

As he and Echo get to know each other, he's not perfect and doesn't say the right thing all of the time, but he listens to her in a way that her friends and hideous wannabe boyfriend won't. McGarry doesn't have Noah change for his good-girl, but rather return to the person he used to be.

As a former member of the popular in-crowd, Echo is essentially crippled by her new outsider status - not to mention the scars on her arms that she can't remember getting. I had a much harder time relating to Echo than Noah, but I am not as petrified of authority as she is. The opening chapter, where Echo, her father and her step-mother are in a group therapy session with Mrs. Collins made me cringe. I couldn't understand how Echo could let her father dictate her life like he did. Then I saw how the same things happened with her friends, her ex-boyfriend Luke, basically everyone she encountered, and I realized that what Echo really needed was a backbone.

Noah helps her find it - or rather, he helps her find the girl that she used to be as well.

Romance novels always claim to feature two people who need each other for whatever reason, but Pushing the Limits really delivers. Noah's I-don't-give-a-fuck attitude clashes with Echo's need to please and as they spend more time together, they balance each other out and it's wonderful to read.

The end doesn't tie everything up in a nice, neat bow, with all wrongs being righted and all amends being made. Echo gets the answers she's been searching for about the night she got her scars, but her reunion with her mother is far from satisfying. I personally thought she was far too forgiving with her father and step-mother, but I have a cold, dead heart. ;P Noah doesn't achieve his exact goal, but he manages to find a solution that's far more realistic for his situation. Despite that vague summary, I was completely satisfied with the way things were wrapped up.

If I were to have any criticisms it would be that some of the dialogue felt wrong - more than once I had a "teenagers don't talk like that" reaction. Some of the characters were so extreme - Grace, Echo's father - in their refusal to accept or listen to Echo that I almost had to put the book down. Both of these "complaints" are minor, however, and I am anxious to read more of McGarry's writing. 

Under the Dome by Stephen King

Title: Under the Dome

Author: Stephen King
Publisher: Scribner
Pages: 1074
Rating 4/5 Stars

Excellent.  Ready for the series now.

Stephen King never disappoints me. Whenever I see that he's put out a new book, I immediately put it on my TBR list - where it usually sits for a really, really long time before I get around to reading it. No matter how long that takes, however, I always enjoy.

What gets me every time with King is his world building and his use of language. He's just a master. For days after I finished Under the Dome I found myself wishing that I could return to Chester's Mill and find out more about the people living there. As much as I looked forward to finding out what caused the dome and how those trapped would get out of it, I just wanted the story to keep going. While I find something to enjoy in every book that I read, it's not often that the characters and setting of a book stay with me and leave me really yearning for more. It's a true bittersweet joy when that happens.

The plot of Under the Dome is pretty straightforward - a mysterious, clear dome suddenly appears over the town of Chester's Mill, trapping most of the town's population inside. Nothing and no one is able to so much as scratch the surface of it and therein lies the story. What happens when a small town is literally cut off from the outside world?

In a word? Chaos.

Under the Dome has many 'main' characters, many heroes and villains, but Dale "Barbie" Barbara would be who I consider the main protagonist. Right from the first page, King infuses the novel with a sense of impending doom and suspense, not just for the citizens of Chester's Mill, but for Barbie in particular. As someone new to town, he's considered an outsider by all and as a result, subject to the whims of an increasingly panicked populace. Through Barbie's eyes we meet the residents of Chester's Mill, gradually getting into their heads and perspectives as the ominous forces working within and without the dome converge.

Under the Dome is a story that could only work within a small town, where everyone knows everyone and secrets are just barely concealed. King uses his environment to superb ends as the population splits into opposing factions and everyone seems to be operating under their own agenda. Even those who don't want to take sides inevitably end up on one. Some of the best and most infuriating elements of this book came from King's exploration of how small down dynamics unfold.

As much as I'd love to recap the entire plot and characters, I could never do it justice. Suffice it to say that Under the Dome has all of King's traditional storytelling elements - a grand, sweeping plot, supernatural/otherworldly influences, complex, real characters that are both good and bad (although some are pretty damn bad), suspense, horror, a little gore...it's all there. His attention to detail is superb, his prose vivid and his dialogue engaging.

I just really loved this book, okay? You should read it.

I read a little about some controversy surrounding the end of the book - basically just that there was some and having finished it, I'm really not sure why. I thought it was a satisfying ending, although I'll admit a part of me felt that he could have continued the action. There's a huge event in the last two hundred pages or so that brings the problems of the Dome rushing to a head and I wouldn't have minded a slower descent into utter chaos.

Of course, if you want a slower version of what happens to Chester's Mill under the dome, check out the tv series because imo, it's equally awesome.

Summer Giveaway Hop!

Welcome to my Summer Giveaway Hop of 2013. Hosted by I Am A Reader, Not A Writer & BookHounds, this one is simple - just fill out the form below for you chance to win the book of your choice (up to $20) from the Book Depository. 

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Be sure to check out the other blogs that are participating for more chances to win!


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Emblaze by Jessica Shirvington

Title: Emblaze
Author: Jessica Shirvington
Publisher: Sourcebooks
Pages: 415
Rating: 4/5 Stars

I finished this book nearly two months ago and while the major reason for my tardiness in reviewing is simply my amazing ability to procrastinate, it actually has a lot to do with my very mixed feelings about Emblaze. 

The story is great and Shirvington does her usual amazing work at spinning a tale full of emotion and mythology as well as a healthy dose of ass-kicking action. Violet must once again risk life and limb to protect her fellow Grigori - as well as the entire human population, basically - in a race against Phoenix who wants to get his mother, Lilith, out of hell. This time, however, it's a lot more personal as her best friend Steph becomes a pawn in the game.

Shirvington took us to Jordan in Entice and this time around we get to check out Greece. I definitely enjoyed Greece more than Jordan - maybe because I was imagining beautiful mediterranean waters instead of miles and miles of sand and rock. There's apparently a Hellmouth in Greece - to use BtVS terms - and the Grigori want to keep it closed at all costs.

Which of course means, it opens.

I wouldn't have it any other way, of course.

New characters of note in this book - Josephine and her ninja-like bodyguards. Josephine is from the Assembly and she's super annoying, but impossible to truly hate because she IS one of the good guys.

Even if she really doesn't seem to like our heroine all that much.

Josephine is also dangerous and Violet has to be supremely on guard around her lest the secret of her evolving abilities gets out.

Irin, the Keeper, is a really shady, gross new bad guy who runs the island on which the Hellmouth exists. He has an agreement with Grigori in that if he keeps the local exile populace under control, they will stay away. I liked him because, well, I always like shady, gross characters who muddy up the waters.

Violet's dad makes an incredible nuisance of himself, finally deciding to actually parent his daughter. I'm sure that Shirvington wants to paint him in a sympathetic light, but I went from apathy to outright dislike when it comes to him.

I felt the same way about Buffy's mother Joyce, to be honest. Parents who only care to parent when their children are a problem.

Last but not least, we get to meet Violet's mother, Evelyn, risen from the mouth of hell along with Lilith. Violet's antagonistic attitude toward her surprised me, but Evelyn came across as pretty abrasive, so she can hold her own. As a reader I know more about Evelyn than Violet does, so I suppose I should cut her a little slack.

A little.

Basically, the story is great, like I said. I thoroughly enjoyed the twists and turns. My lack of enthusiasm in reviewing comes down to the issue I've made no secret about since book one and that's my dislike of Lincoln.

I still really, really dislike Lincoln.

I still see the way he loves Violet as a weakness - not the fact that he does love her, but in the way Shirvington has him express it. I'd dealt with his and Violet's nauseating relationship because I thought that the story was going to be a true triangle with Phoenix.

After reading this book, I'm no longer sure of that and I find it really disappointing.

What makes it worse is the fact that Phoenix gets his own POV chapter in Embrace and it's paragraph after paragraph of his true motivations and feelings for Violet - loving her, thinking of how she could have been the one to give him a place to belong, a family, made life worth living for him, etc. And there's SO much Violet doesn't know. So much truth she doesn't even have an inkling of when it comes to Phoenix. It's the stuff star-crossed lovers are made of, not this contrived nonsense between Violet and Lincoln.

But that said, all signs seem to be pointing toward Violet and Lincoln being the couple to root for which just confuses the hell out of me. I've never seen an author approach character or relationships like this. Phoenix and Violet get the character development while Lincoln is on the sidelines, typically brooding and unhappy.

It's just weird and not in a good way.

I intend to keep reading the series because three books in I'm invested in more than just the romance and I really do enjoy the characters - literally all of them except Lincoln - but I'm going to do my best to disengage from the romance.

I need to lower my expectations and hopes and just look forward to Phoenix on his own.

TBR List for Secret Reader Challenge

My entire bookshelf could be considered TBR, but I'll stick to the highlights - the books I've been "dying to read" forever and never get around to...

Apocalypse Blog Hop!

Welcome to my Apocalypse Blog Hop, hosted by Rainy Day Ramblings, Love of Books and The Nocturnal Library. In honor of this hop, I'm giving away the dystopian/apocalyptic book of your choice from the Book Depository.


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