Shatter Me by Tahereh Mafi

Bookish Mardi: A Book Review of Shatter Me by Tahereh Mafi


"It's nearly impossible to beat gravity when no one is willing to give you a hand."  - Tahereh Mafi

Even before I finish the very first dystopian I ever had, the Divergent Series, I already had with me the next dystopian that I was planning to indulge myself with. Tehereh Mafi's Shatter Me series caught my attention because of the books' symbolic covers, the eye.

But other than the covers the books are having, what made me choose the series to read next was this:

It was the very first time wherein I found lines from a book that perfectly describe me entirely and because of it, the series right away earned a very special place in my heart. I may sound bias, however I can never contradict if that's what both my mind and heart say. I then told myself that I will be surely investing my time and money with this author and her books.And so I did. ^_^



Book Review/ Reflection

As I engaged myself to the story Tahereh is introducing to me, I am glad, in a way, that I dived headfirst in the story without any second thoughts. Tahereh's intriguing premise and unconventional writing style snagged my interest as fast as lightning. I've learned to admire one among the many styles she did use, strinkingthrough the words which are of minute yet heavy importance. I find it annoying at first but unique.

Her writing style isn't just SOLELY unique. I find her ability to make full use of metaphors fascinating as well as her ability to manipulate words meaningfully. Her diction as well is truly exquisite that whenever I encountered those every single symbolism being eludicated I was never never left jaded. Though most of the writing are in stream-of-consciousness way, which other do not prefer, it just made me heightened my liking for the series.

So much for the structure of the novel, Tahereh's well-made-up and easily-to-love characters are a turn-on for the series. As I tried to scrutinize the characters, I found out one common ground for all, mostly the main characters ( Adam, Warner, Juliette ). They all are into sacrificing something. Adam does whatever it takes just to protect his younger sibling, Warner hurts and lets go of the girl who he loves the most just for her to grow, and Juliette decides to not minding herself so as to help their kind live.

Though Adam and Juliette's love may be labeled as "instant", their connection is ultimately geniune even with the intrusion of Warner. Both chemistry , Adam and Juliette and Warner and Juliette, were so quite palpable that I can never contradict Juliette to whoever she had chosen no matter how hard I try to dictate my mind to.

Their story or better yet Tahereh's debut novel taught me the value of forgiveness, selflessness, and sacrifices. There may come a time in our lives wherein we have to choose things which may harm us or may not do any good to us yet will benefit our significant others. And being the reasonable us, we always gamble ourselves just to be of great help and purpose.

Our sacrifices, though not as much as Juliette's, are beyond our success. We treat them as our bitter sweet accomplishments. We sacrifice not seeing our family and work far from them to be able to provide them the better lives they deserve.We set aside ourselves when it comes to buying things we long to have just to bring something that may cause one great happiness for the people we love. We choose, most of the time and most of the painful things we can ever hope to imagine, give up our own battle, surrender in our battlefield, just to be able to give them a life that may offer them some new and great beginnings. In simpler way we aren't really afraid of taking the bullets straight into our hearts just to see them live.

These, I come to believe, are our most conventional yet bizarre ways of showing how we value and love the people around us. We call them SACRIFICES. But sometimes when we are all carried away by the worst case scenarios we are facing, we oftentimes forget to realize that these acts of making them happy is actually what we called LOVE. It's love cloaking itself as sacrifice. And believe me, when we sacrifice consciously and unconsciously knowing for the sake of love, we become selfless and we easily forget what pain others have brought into our lives.

Hence, with these insights I was able to ponder through Tahereh, I'm never giving up the place she has not only in my shelf but in my heart as well. I thank her for successfully having this masterpiece which has brought me to these realizations. Truly, her eccentric way of writing paired with the story's exemplary plot and fascinating characters which captivated me effortlessly.

Shatter Me, not to mention the twists present in the story, as a whole is an invigorating one which had captured my mind and heart and it may do its spell to other readers out there the way it did to me. So to those who love dystopian and supernatural YA Books, include this series in your list,too.


Book Summary

I have a curse
I have a gift

I am a monster
I am more than  human

My touch is lethal
My touch is power

I am their weapon
I will fight back

Juliette hasn't touched anyone in exactly 264 days.

the last time she did, it was an accident, but the Reestablishment locked her up for murder. No one knows why Juliette's touch is fatal. As long as she doesn't hurt anyone else, no one really cares. The world is too busy crumbling to pieces to pay attention to a 17-year-old girl. Diseases are destroying the population, food is hard to find, bird's don't fly anymore, and the clouds are the wrong color.

The Reestablishment said their way was the only way to fix things, so they threw Juliette in the cell. Now so many people are dead that survivors are whispering war - and the Reestablishment has changed its mind. Maybe Juliette is more than a tortured soul stuffed into a poisonous body. Maybe she's exactly what they need right now.

Juliette has to make a choice. Be a weapon. Or be a warrior.



Remarkable Lines from the Book 

(Another reason why I loved the book was seeing one of my personal favorite poems in it.)

"I know the sky falls down everyday." - Juliette

"The sun drops into the ocean and splashes browns and reds and yellows and oranges into the
world outside my window.A million leaves from a hundred different brances dip in the wind, fluttering with the false promises of light. The gust catches their withered wings only to force them downward, forgotten, left to be trampled by the soldiers stationed just below." -  Juliette

"I am a raindrop." - Juliette

"Someone picked up the sun and pinned it to the sky again, but every day it hangs a little lower than the day before. It's like a negligent parent who only know one half of who you are. It never see how it s absence changes people. How we are different in the dark." - Juliette

"My hope is exhausted. My eyes are unfocused and aching." - Juliette

"Sometime I think that lonelinessis going to explode through my skin and sometimes I'm not sure if crying or screaming or laughing through the hysteria will solve anything at all." - Juliette

"If time stands still nothing can go wrong." - Juliette

"The world id flat.I know because I was tossed right off the edge and I've been trying to hold on for 17 years. I've been trying to climb back up for 17 years but it's nearly impossible to beat gravity when no one is willing to givw you a hand." - Juliette

"The moons understand what it means to be human." - Juliette

"We were killing ourselves by trying to stay alive." - Juliette

"Truth is a jealous, vicious mistress that never ever sleeps." - Juliette

"Convictions priorities preferences prejudice and ideologies divided us. Deluded us. Destroyed us." - Juliette

"Selfish needs, wants, and desires needed to be obliterated. Greed, overindulgence, and gluttony had to be expunged from human behavior. The solution was in self-control, in minimalism, in sparse living conditions; one simple language and a brand-new dictionary filled with words everyone would understand." - Juliette

"People used to want hope. They wanted to think things could get better. They wanted to believe they could go back to worrying about gossip and holiday vacations and going to parties on Saturday nights." - Juliette

"My eyes are two professional pickpockets, stealing everything to store away in my mind." - Juliette

"Political headquarters camouflaged among the masses." - Juliette

"So many people must've died to sustain. . . luxury." - Juliette

"I spent my life folded between the pages of the book." - Juliette

"Don't confuse stupidity for bravery." - Warner

"The mechanics of fear are simple. People are intimidated by me, so they listen when I speak. Empty threats worth very little these days." - Warner

". . .power and control can slip from your grasp at any moment and even when you think you're most prepared. These two things are not easy to earn. They are even harder to retain." - Warner

"Life is a bleak place. Sometimes you have to learn how to shoot first." - Warner

Warner: Go to sleep.
Juliette: Go to hell.
Warner: "I'm working on it."

". . .my heart if so full of confidence and wonder and peace and possibility that it's about to burst." - Juliette

"My heart cracks. My eyes flash. I'm so hurt so angry so horrified so humiliated and burning with indignation so raw that it's like fire raging within me, a wildfire of decimated hopes." - Juliette

"The human imagination is often disastrous when left to its own device." - Juliette

"There are secrets everywhere. There are answers nowhere." - Juliette

"My mind is a maze of possibility." - Juliette

"Laughter comes from living." - Juliette

"The possibility of losing him is 100 years of solitude I don't want to imagine. I don't want my arms to devoid of his warmth." - Juliette

"Realization is a pendulum the size of the moon. It won't stop slamming into me." - Juliette

"I am a rock. A statue. A movement frozen in time." - Juliette

"It's been me and you against the world forever." - Adam

"Seasons change. Stars explode." - Adam

"I don't if saying "I love you" is code for "mutually exclusive". - Juliette

". . . moving forward is the only way to survive." - Juliette

"Rumors are more likely to kill you." - Juliette

"Fear is a great motivator." - Castle

"There is still a chance to change." - Castle

"Inspiration is a bleak world with nothing to offer." - Juliette

"It's never a good idea to believe everything you hear." - Castle

"Healing is a delicate process. It can't be interrupted or influenced by erratic emotions." - Castle

"We all have to learn how to harness our abilities in the most effective manner possible." - Winston

"I don't think it's interesting to be able to kill someone by accident. I don't think it's interesting to be afraid to touch someone." - Juliette

Thank you and keep updated for the book's sequel, Unravel Me. ^_*

Quotes from Four A Divergent Collection by Veronica Roth

Bookish Mardi: Four A Divergent Collection by Veronica Roth 

". . . becoming fearless isn't the point.That's impossible. It's learning how to control your fear, and how to be free from it, that's the point." - Veronica Roth

The author started writing Divergent from the perspective of Tobias Eaton, a boy from Abnegation with peculiar tension with his father who longed for freedom from his  faction. She reached a standstill at thirty pages becasue the narrator wasn't quite right for the story she wanted to tell; four years later, when she picked up the story again, she found the right character to drive it, this time a girl from Abnegation who wanted to find out what she was made for. But Tobias never disappeared - he entered the story as Four, Tris's instructor, boyfriend, and equal. He has always been a character Veronica was interested exploring further because of the way he came alive for her every time he was on the page. He is so powerful for her largely because of the way he continues to overcome adversities, even managing, on several occasions, to flourish in it.

Book Summary

Two years before Beatrice Prior made her choice, the sixteen-year-old son of Abnegation's faction leader did the same. Tobias's transfer to Dauntless is a chance to begin again. Here he will not be called the name his parents gave him. Here, he will not let fear turn him into a cowering child.

Newly christened "Four", he discovered during initiation that he will succeed in Dauntless. Initiation is only the beginning, though; Four must claim his place in the Dauntless heirarchy. His decisions will affect future initiates as well as uncover secrets that could threaten his own future - and the future of the entire faction system.

Two year later, Four is poised to take action, but the course is still unclear. The first new initiatie who jumps  into the net might change all that. With her, the way to righting  their world might become clear. With her, it might become possible to be Tobias once again. (Source: Wikipedia)

Book Content

Remarkable Lines from the Book

". . . no safe truths, no safe secrets to tell." - Tobias
"You're the one who has to live with your choice. Everyone else will get over it, move on, no matter what you decide. But you never will." - Evelyn

". . .free moments always have to end." - Tobias

". . . each of us, each individual, was responsible for the evil that exists in the world. But they (our ancestors) didn't agree on exactly what that evil was. Some said it was dishonesty. Some said it was ignorance, some agression, some said selfishness was the cause. And the last group saidthat it was cowardice that was to blame." - Max

"You're the one who has to live with your choice." - Tori

"Most of the time death just comes whether you've said good-bye or not." - Amar

"Vanity. They are so concerned with looking intelligent that they make themselves fools for it." - Marcus

". . .while wounds heal, they don't disappear forever - I carry them everywhere, always, and that is the way of things, the way of scars." - Tobias

"the problem with many Erudite is their selfishness, but I think it is their arrogance, the pride they take in knowing things that others do not." - Tobias

". . . for every good thing that comes along, there is always a cost." - Tobias

"Rule numeber one for not being creepy. Announce your presence in a room if another person doesn't see you come in." - Shauna

"How to Be Dauntless: An Introductory Course. Lesson One: It's okay to hug your friends here." - Shauna

"It's okay not to be okay." - Zeke

"I'm not sure bravery is something you acquire more of with age, like wisdom.
. . .bravery is the highest form of wisdom, the acknowledgement that life can and should be lived without fear." - Tobias

"Our city is changing, faster than ever before, and in order to keep up with it, we'll have to change, too. We'll have to become stronger, braver, better than we are now." - Max

"There's something ridiculous about a tough, hardened Dauntless warrior with a stack of papers. . . but of course some things have to be ordinary, because it's more efficient that way." - Max

"Power should be given only to those who earn it. Difficult circumstances from stronger people. You don't know how strong a person really is until they're tested." - Tobias

"Everything has to start in the right orde and finish in the reverse order. Just make sure that everything is in the right place." - Tobias

". . . it was more painful to long for things and never get them than to deal with whatever was in front of me." - Tobias

". . . most of the time, people aren't easy to explain." - Tobias

". . .when you're sneaking around, it's best not to look like you're sneaking around." - Tobias

"Cowardice is how you decide to be in real life." - Tris

"Learning how to think in the midst of fear is a lesson that everyone needs to learn." - Tobias

". . . becoming fearless isn't the point. That's impossible. It's learning how to control your fear, and how to be free from it, that's the point." - Tobias

"Dead people can be our heroes because they can't disappoint us later; they only improve over time, as we forget more and more about them." - Tobias

"Fear doesn't shut you down. It wakes you up. I've seen it. It's fascinating."  - Tobias

". . . openness is a habit you form over time, and not a switch you flip whenever you want to." - Tobias

Thank you for taking your time in my blog. Please click the following pages for the Divergent Book Review and Quotes, Insurgent Quotes, Allegiant Quotes. Have Fun!

- Cee Brensan

Quotes from Allegiant by Veronica Roth

Bookish Mardi: Quotes from Allegiant by Veronica Roth 

". . . even tiny drops of water, over time, can change the rock forever. And it will never change back." - Veronica Roth 

Book Summary

One choice will define you.

What if your whole world was a lie?

What if a single revelation - like a single choice - changed everything?

What if love and loyalty made you do things you never expected?

The faction-based society that Tris Prior once believed in is shattered - fractured by violence and power struggles and scarred by loss and betrayal. So when offered a chance to explore the world past the limit she's known, Tris is ready. Peraps beyond the fence, she and Tobias will find a simple new life together, free from complicated lies, tangled by loyalties and painful memories.

But Tris new reality is even more alarming than the one she left behind. Old discoveries are rendered meaningless. Explosive new truths change the heart of those she loves. And once again, Tris must battle to comprehend the complexities of human nature - and of herself - while facing impossible choices about courage, allegiance, sacrifice and love. (Source: Wikipedia)

Remarkable Lines from the Book

"Every question that can be answered must be answered or at least engaged. Illogical thought processes must be challenged when they arise. Wrong answers must be corrected. Correct answers must be affirmed." - From the Erudite faction manifesto

". . . she looks pale and small but her eyes make me think of wide-open skies that I have never actually seen, only dreamed of." - Tobias

"I feel like everything inside me is vibrating with energy, in anticipation of what is to come." I am free." - Tris

" People always organize into groups. That's a fact of our existence." - Evelyen Eaton

"Some people will always fear change." - Evelyn Eaton

"Chaos and destruction do tend to take away a person's dating possibilities." - Tris

"I would like to experience this 'date' phenomenon." - Tobias

"I don't know if you can understand what it was like to wake up alone, and know that you had gone . . . to Erudite." - Tobias

"I'm reliable. You can trust me. And you can let me be the judge of what I can handle." - Tris

"A day contains many anger." - Random Voice

"No matter what, this will be over soon." - Four

"Being honest doesn't mean you say whatever you want, whenever you want. It means that what you choose to say is true.' - Christina

". . . when you kill someon you love, the hardest part is never over. it just gets easier to distract yourself from what you've done." -  Tris

". . . it is easier to let someone die just because they wronged you. Forgive, forgive, forgive." - Tris

"I was still afraid of him , I knew, but in a different way - I was no longer a child, afraid of the threat my terrifying father posted to my safety. I was a man, afraid of the threat he posted to my character, to my future, to my identity." - Tobias

"I wonder if fears really go away, or if thy just lose their power over us." - Tris

"Take away someone's fear, or low intelligence, or dishonesty. . . and you take away their compassion. Take away someone's aggression and you and you take away their motivation, or their ability to assess themselves. Tkae away their selfishness and you take away their sense of self-preservation." - David

". . . every faction loses  something when it gains a virtue: the Dauntless, brave but cruel; the Erudite, intelligent but vain; the Amity, peaceful but passive; the Candor, honest but inconsiderate; the Abnegation, selfless but stifling." - Tris

"Humanity has never been perfect." - David

"People, even genetically damaged, make choices. That's what mattes." - Amar

"Theinternal war doesn't seem like a product of genetic damage - it seems completey, purely human." - Tris

". . . if we can just be friends or lovers or siblings, defined instead by choices we make and the love and loyalty that binds us." - Tris

"If you see someone in trouble, you should help them." - Tris

"I know some things - I know that I'm not alone, that I have friends, that I'm in love. I know where I came from. I know that I want to die, and for me, that's something." - Tris

"People can't be trusted to lie consistently." - Amar

"Tricking someone into grief is one of the cruelest tricks a person can play." - Tris

". . . even tiny drops of water, over time, can change the rock forever. And it will never change back." - Zoe

"Doing a little at once can fix something but when you believe that something is truly a problem, you throw everything you have at it, because you just can't help yourself." - Tris

". . . to share is to be self-indulgent." - Tobias

"Desperation can make a peson do surprising things." - Tobias

"Death could not erase her; she is permanent." - Tris

"Every human being has a limitation." - Nita

"Everyone has to blame somethinf for the way the world is." - Tris

". . . if everyone would just keep learning about the world around them, they would have far fewer problems." - Tris

"There's an old phrase.Knowledge is power. Power to do evil, or power to do good. . . Power itself is not evil. So knowledge itself is not evil." - Matthew

". . .power should only be given to people who don't want it." - Tris

"Our ability to know about ourselves and the world is what makes us human." - Matthew

". . . we all decide our children's fates just by making our own life decisions." - Tris

"He is stronger than anyone I know, and warmer than anyone else realizes; he is a secret I have kept, and will keep for the rest of my life." - Tris

Photo from Web

"People are supposed to fear others, not themselves. People are supposed to aspire to become their fathers, not shudder at the thought." - Tobias

"People are just divided by different things, fighting different wars." - Tobias

"Why spend so much time and energy fighting something that isn't really a problem?" - Tobias

"You don't believe things because they make your life better, you believe them because they are true." - Christina

Tris: Don't for a second think that I actually believe she's not interested in you for more than your genetic code.
Tobias: Well, don't for a second think I'm intersted in anyone but you.

". . . everyone has some evil inside them, and the first step to loving anyone is to recognize the same evil in ourselves, so we're able to forgive them." - Tobias

"Pride blinds people to the truthof what they are." - Tris

"Sometimes we need to fight for peace." -  Johanna

". . . all evil men, that someone, they look just like good men, talk like good men just as likable as good men." - Tris

"If someone offers you the opportunity to get closer to your enemy, you always take it." - Tris

"All land is filled with people, everyone of them different, and the things they do to each other matter." - Tobias

- Tobias

"The entire compound can't possibly know what their leaders have done." - Tris

"Some people's anger makes them want to kill everyone they perceive as an enemy. Some people's make them constructivee." - Random Woman

". . .the power to male people fear you is the only power you need." - Tobias

"We can't pretend that we don't belong there anymore, while we're living in relative safety in this place, but we do. We always will." - Tobias

- Tris

"She still approaches anything with a question instead of an answer. It is something I admire about her." - Tobias

"It's strange how time can make a place shrink, make its strangeness ordinary." - Tris

". . . when you have to choose between two bad options, you pick the one that saves the people you love and believe in the most.' - Tris

Tris: Christina, you haven't lost me. You'll never lose me.
Christina: Thanks.You won't lose me either.

"There is a difference between admitting and cofessing. Admitting involves softening, making excuses for things that cannot be excused; confessing just names the crime at its full severity." - Tris

". . . when someon wrongs you, you both share the burden of that wrongdoing - the pain of it weighs on both of you. Forgiveness, then, means choosing to bear the full weight all by yourself." - Tris

". . . if the sacrifice is the ultimate way for that person to show you that they love you, you should let them do it." - Tobias

". . . that's what love does, when it's right - it makes you more that you were, more than you thought you could be." -  Tris

"I am too strong to break so easily, and I become better, sharper, every time I touch him." - Tris

"Lucky is better than unlucky." - Tobias

"Sometimes,  all it takes to save people from a terrible fate is one person willing to do something about it." - Tobias

"Have you really forgiven me, or are you just saying that because I'm about to die?" - Caleb

". . . maybe forgiveness is just the continual pushing aside of bitter memories, until time dulls the hurt and the anger, and the wrong is forgotten." - Tris

"Caleb, I love you."
"I love you, too, Beatrice."

"I am powerful and invincible and eternal." - Tris

". . . sacrifice should be done from love.
. . . it should be done for people who need your strength because they don't have enough of their own." - Tris

"They'll care for each other. That's what people do." - Tris

". . . change is difficult, and comes slowly, and that it is the work of many days strung together in a long line until the origin of them is forgotten." - Tobias

"Sometimes you have to take difficult measures to ensure peace." - Johanna

"I have always hated the emptiness that winter brings." - Tobias

"All I can do is stand still - I feel like I just stand still, I can stop it (death of Tris) from being true, I can pretend that everything is all right." - Tobias

" I suppose the fire that burns that bright is not meant to last." - Tobias

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". . .everything inside me screams for just one more kiss, one more word, one more glance, once more." - Tobias

". . . human nature is complex. . ."  - Tobias

"People talk about the pain of grief but I don't know what they mean. To me, grief is a devastating numbness, every sensation dulled." - Tobias

"There are other kinds of people in this world." - Tobias

"There are so many ways to be brave in this world." - Tobias

Christina: Sometimes life really sucks. But you know what I'm holding for?
The moments that don't suck. The trick is to notice them when they come around.

"Life damages us, everyone. We can't escape that damage."
"We can be mended. We mend each other." -  Tobias

Thanks for sparing you time! Visit also my book review for Divergent and keep updated for Four. *_^

- Cee Brensan