Shatter Me

by Tahereh Mafi

Grade: Unfinished
Read: The first bunch, and then scatterings throughout the rest. (I know, I know. Terribly unspecific. I have this section so I can remember exactly where I stopped reading, to either pick it up again if I decide to in the future, or reminisce about which page was the one that broke the camel's back, so to speak. But this time I couldn't remember the exact page, so unspecific it's going to have to be.)

Thoughts: I only read this because a review talked about an awesome anit-hero, and I will read a whole book or series purely for the sake of an awesome anti-hero, villain, sidekick, or secondary character. So I wasn't expecting too much. But there are some things which are simply too much for me:

1. There were three men (three!) who were described as well-muscled, with amazing eyes. Light emerald, deep blue pools...

2. It was extremely stylized, especially at the beginning. Not only was there this weird thing where words and sentences were crossed out every once in a while ("No more daydreams."), but the metaphors were just overwhelming. "His eyes scan the silhouette of my structure and the slow motion makes my heart race. I catch the rose petals as they fall from my cheeks, as they float around the frame of my body, as they cover me in something that feels like the absence of courage." It reminded me of The Book Thief in a way. Most people seemed to love The Book Thief, partly because of the stylized writing. But it really didn't do anything for me.

3. The aforementioned awesome anti-hero? Not half as awesome as I was hoping. True, he was a evil young psycho, which I tend to have a certain fondness for. But he was also one of the well-muscled guys with amazing, light emerald eyes. And he was always doing things like taking the heroine's breath away, because he was so beautiful and sexy and all that. And he was 19. I'm more than fine with young evil geniuses, but there has to be some sort of explanation, justification, something. People don't just become 19-year-old leaders of men. And Warner seemed like he should be at least 25 or so.