Unravel Me (Shatter Me #2)

Loneliness is a strange sort of thing.
It creeps up on you, quiet and still, sits by your side in the dark, strokes your hair as you sleep. It wraps itself around your bones, squeezing so tight you almost can’t breathe. It leaves lies in your heart, lies next to you at night, leaches the light out from every corner. It’s a constant companion, clasping your hand only to yank you down when you’re struggling to stand up.

Summary
Juliette and Adam managed to escape Warner and join the Omega Point. It’s a rebel base, filled with people just like Juliette – people with special powers. It was supposed to be a place where she would finally belong, where she wouldn’t be a freak. That’s the only thing she ever wanted. But that might just be too good to be true.

Writing
Tahereh Mafi’s writing style is pure art. She is able to portray emotions in a very real and powerful way (though they sometimes tend to be a little exaggerated). Her language is rich and poetic, at times it feels more like a poem than prose.

I think the world building is a little weak. I was able to forgive it in the first book in a series. But this is a sequel and I still don’t exactly understand the setting of the storyand that’s not a good thing.

Characters
It’s very rare for character to annoy me as much as Juliette does. I know that she had an awful past, so I am not mad at her for being so weak and having absolutely no backbone. But it’s hard not to get exasperated when she treats every single, even remotely distressing thing that happens to her, like the end of the world. She acts like she is the center of the entire universe and that really gets on my nerves. Though, I have to admit, towards the end I saw some development and I am actually excited to see what Tahereh is going to do with this character in the next book.

The relationship between Juliette and Adam is a standard YA teenage love™. It completely lacks substance. They are attracted to each other and they spend their every second together on kissing, but they almost never talk. I don’t know how they can claim to love one another, when they are basically strangers.

And then there are interactions between Juliette and Warner. And that’s the kind of thing I signed up for. They actually seek to get to know and understand each other. Their conversations are meaningful and soul-bearing. There is something very addicting about these two together. I just can’t get enough.

Plot
It’s 60% Juliette’s love problems and 40% actual plot. Well, I am being generous. But even though we didn’t get that much of it, I really enjoyed the story. I think it resolved a lot of things in a very interesting way (for example I really liked the reason for why Adam was able to touch Juliette. I was a little scared it was going to be something along the lines “oh, he can touch her because he loves her so much.” But I was pleasantly surprised).

Overall
It was definitely much better than the first book. This one still has it’s faults, but I am excited to find out where this story is going to take me next.

 

Big, BIG thank you to Booknerdtan. for buddy reading this with me. I am so sorry it didn’t work out for you!

You can find this book on Goodreads and Book Depository