On the fence

[Rob]

So I'm very late to the party, but considering getting into the trilogy. Any comments or opinions? I'd love to hear them.

[chinami]

i did not like it. but i suggest you give book 1 a try. if you like it then continue.

[Ilana]

i enjoyed this story - if for nothing more that it causes you to think about the pre-conceived ideas that you have about people. what we have here is your typical YA lit angsty love triangle, all filtered through a dystopian sci-fi environment. yes, a mouthful, but still - it was decent.

i came across this series after someone suggested it to me under a different guise - but all in all it's pretty good

[Andi]

Skip it.

The writing style is atrocious. There is hardly any plot to speak of. This is not a dystopia, it's a romance. And a poorly written one at that.

[hanpanparker]

I loved this book. I mean the metaphors were kind of annoying, but I think it just added to Mafi's writing style. She conveyed Juliette so beautifully. If you've seen X-Men (especially X-Men: United), Juliette's pretty much Rogue except you get so much further in depth in her character. At times I felt so depressed because Juliette was depressed (props to the author). The writing in my opinion was beautiful. It takes skill to write about a character like that. Tahereh Mafi can touch people physically, so she could never know what it was like to not be able to touch people. But despite that, she tapped into that feeling, a feeling that the actress who played Rogue could never tap into. A lot of people give Mafi trouble because she made Juliette dress in skimpy clothes for one part in Shatter Me. I know I'm sort of giving that away, but it wasn't just because Warner wanted to see her naked (he did because well, he's a guy), he wanted her skin to be exposed so that she'd have more areas where people could accidentally touch her and get hurt (if people touch any exposed skin they pretty much die or get hurt). I loved this book, and yes, there is sort of a love triangle. It's not very pronounced at first (and you may think one of the participants of the love triangle is a complete jerk), but after you divulge deeper into the series, you understand the love triangle and everything about it. This is a very good series... for girls mostly. I mean, it has some action elements, but mostly it's about Juliette lacking that need she yearns for. She's never been touched; she's never been loved. I mean, that would really suck. It's really good in my opinion, but it just depends on what you're looking for. If you like X-Men, you might like this (but only if like Rogue and Bobby and their dilemmas also in The Last Stand where Rogue was determining whether to get the cure). Anyway, you can try it out, but if you're looking for something with less inner self conflict, you can try The 5th Wave by Rick Yancey (I love that book and it appeals to all genders).

[Online Eccentric Librarian]

The point of the 3 books is that the main character starts out traumatized, barely able to speak or function, asocialized, and then through the series she learns to socialize, operate, and be fairly normal.

A lot of people stopped at book one because of the oddly stilted way of thinking/talking of the main character. But by the third book, she is operating much more normally and without the purpose prose that marked her destabilized mental state of the first book.

Those that love the book, tend to love the intense romance and bad boy anti hero. Those that hated it, hated the odd speech patterns. A couple of people hated the x-men like uniforms. :)

But it really isn't about Mafi's 'writing style'. The third book is quite different than the first, which suggests Mafi wrote the first purposely to highlight her main character's damage and then normalize her by the third.

[Emily]

I really enjoyed it. But I think the ending was rushed and incomplete.