Review of Shatter Me by Tahereh Mafi

Title: Shatter Me
Author: Tahereh Mafi
Narrator: Kate Simses
Published by:  Harper Audio
Length: 9 hr., 12 min.
Source: Library
Format: Audio
Rating: 4 stars

Summary from Goodreads: "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'm a little late to the game in reading Shatter Me.  Everyone ranted and raved about it so I knew I eventually had to read it, but I was scared with all the hype surrounding it I would be disappointed.  I have to admit it took me awhile, in fact almost the whole book, to get why everyone loved it so much and then the ending came and I understood. 

Juliette is a complex character.  She's so lonely and heart-broken.  Her touch is deadly and after an incident in a grocery story she was locked up in a "mental asylum" and essentially left to die.  I feel so bad for her.  I think it would be horrible to never touch another person, to feel the comfort of a hug or the passion of a kiss.  Juliette craves the company of others but never really had the chance to interact with them.  She kept herself separated for fear of hurting others and her parents isolated and ignored her.  Talk about an intriguing psychological profile...Juliette is more than a little scarred from her ability. 

Because of Juliette's "gift," The Reestablishment tries to use her as a weapon.  This plot seemed similar to many other novels.  Find someone with a gift and use them for the evil people's agenda, throw in a cute guy, and a creepy, conniving leader and the story is complete...up until the ending.  Oh, the ending.  It is perfect and I am so excited about it.  This for me is what made the book.  If Tahereh Mafi would have stopped the novel 100 pages earlier I wouldn't have been that fond of it, but she didn't and I thank her a million times for that.    

This was one of the more interesting novels I've listened to on audio.   Kate Simses had a bit of a younger and softer voice than I imaged by looking at the girl on the cover of the novel, but the voice fit Juliette.  I think there is a bit of a disconnect about how I viewed Juliette and the fierce looking chick on the cover.  Anyways back to the audio.  They did this really cool thing where every time Juliette "scratched out" a word in the story, the audio made the sound of a pencil scratching out the word on a piece of paper.  It was such a small addition but really aided to the enjoyment of the audio.  It was a great sound affect.

While the beginning started off a bit slow for me the ending definitely made up for it!