March 12, 2013

Review: Unravel Me by Tahereh Mafi



Unravel Me by Tahereh Mafi
Series: Shatter Me #2
Source: Borrowed
Release Date: February 13, 2013

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it's almost
time for war.

Juliette has escaped to Omega Point. It is a place for people like her—people with gifts—and it is also the headquarters of the rebel resistance.

She's finally free from The Reestablishment, free from their plan to use her as a weapon, and free to love Adam. But Juliette will never be free from her lethal touch.

Or from Warner, who wants Juliette more than she ever thought possible.

In this exhilarating sequel to Shatter Me, Juliette has to make life-changing decisions between what she wants and what she thinks is right. Decisions that might involve choosing between her heart—and Adam's life.


To begin, I wasn't the biggest fan of the first novel, Shatter Me, in this series. I found it mediocre at best. Again with this book I found this to be super annoying, distracting, etc. In the first book, there was something else that annoyed me about the writing style, but I couldn't put my finger on it. I finally realized that half of the book is full of analogies and pretty similes. I feel that the author was trying too hard to make the writing pretty and didn't do enough world building.

I don’t think this book should necessarily be labelled as dystopian. It is more romance first with a little dystopian/paranormal to fill in the background.

The novel begins with Juliette at Omega trying to hone her special powers. Omega Point seems very much like X-Men's Xavier's School for Gifted Youngsters. She has not adjusted at all. I don't feel like she really tried to adjust or make friends. You do feel how lonely she is throughout the beginning of the book and how she is burdened with the guilt for being considered a "monster" for the first 17 years of her life. She just wants to be like all the other girls, have friends and a boyfriend who she can touch without killing.

By the time I was a third into the book, I was tired of how whiny and pathetic Juliette was becoming. She did become much stronger by the end of the book.

The only character I truly enjoyed was Kenji. He was funny throughout the novel, but was still able to be serious and could tell Juliette he just doesn’t care about her love life that their situation was bigger than that.

The battle in the middle of the book was written pretty well. It had lots of action, but didn’t drag on. After the battle I found the last half of the book to drag out a bit, and it was almost anti-climactic until the cliff-hanger on the last page.

My Rating: