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Published: 1st November 2011
For Ages: 14 - 18 years old

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Juliette must make a choice. Be a weapon. Or a warrior. Combining a crumbling dystopian world with a compelling heroine who has inexplicable powers, Shatter Me is a mesmerising thriller. 'Addictive, intense, and oozing with romance.' - Lauren Kate, author of 'Fallen'

Set in a dystopian world, Shatter Me is the story of a 17-year-old girl imprisoned for possessing a fatal touch. As she watches everything crumble around her, she must choose between relinquishing her power or using it to save the world.

Juliette hasn't touched anyone in exactly 264 days and the last time was an accident. Now accidental murder has her locked up in an asylum where happy is a hot meal and not being dead in the morning. No one knows why touching her skin for too long is fatal. No one knows how to fix her problem. 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. The ozone layer is deteriorating. Farms are scarce, food is hard to find, temperatures are unreliable and the clouds are the wrong colour.

The Reestablishment said their way was the only way to fix things. They said the people were to blame for wasting and raping the land of its resources. It's time to start fresh, is what they said. Bleach the past and throw away the freaks. So they threw Juliette in a cell and chopped up the opposition while she blinked. Now enough of the population is dead that the rest 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 might be useful. Maybe a Venus flytrap is exactly what they need right now. And maybe Juliette doesn't give a damn what The Reestablishment needs. Maybe she's tired of being a monster. Maybe she wants to be a human being for once in her life.

Maybe she wants to fight back.

But Juliette has to fight much more than a war. She has to fight herself for the right to be human and fight the world for the right to be free. She has to make a choice. Be a weapon. Or be a warrior.

About The Author

Tahereh Mafi is a girl. She was born the youngest child with four older brothers in a small city somewhere in Connecticut, and currently resides in Orange County, California, where the weather is just a little too perfect for her tastes. She graduated from a tiny liberal arts college two miles from the shores of Laguna Beach, has varying levels of competency in eight different languages and spent a semester abroad in Barcelona, Spain, where she had the opportunity to study Spanish literature in its native form. She's travelled all over the world, lived on both sides of the country, and even spent some years writing really bad poetry. When unable to find a book, she can be found reading candy wrappers, coupons, and old receipts. She has no idea how to multiply big numbers in her head, and hopes to God no one will ever ask her to. Shatter Me is her first novel.

Kirkus Reviews
A dystopic thriller joins the crowded shelves but doesn't distinguish itself.

Juliette was torn from her home and thrown into an asylum by The Reestablishment, a militaristic regime in control since an environmental catastrophe left society in ruins. Juliette's journal holds her tortured thoughts in an attempt to repress memories of the horrific act that landed her in a cell. Mysteriously, Juliette's touch kills. After months of isolation, her captors suddenly give her a cellmate—Adam, a drop-dead gorgeous guy. Adam, it turns out, is immune to her deadly touch. Unfortunately, he's a soldier under orders from Warner, a power-hungry 19-year-old. But Adam belongs to a resistance movement; he helps Juliette escape to their stronghold, where she finds that she's not the only one with superhuman abilities. The ending falls flat as the plot devolves into comic-book territory. Fast-paced action scenes convey imminent danger vividly, but there's little sense of a broader world here. Overreliance on metaphor to express Juliette's jaw-dropping surprise wears thin: "My mouth is sitting on my kneecaps. My eyebrows are dangling from the ceiling." For all of her independence and superpowers, Juliette never moves beyond her role as a pawn in someone else's schemes.

Part cautionary tale, part juicy love story, this will appeal to action and adventure fans who aren't yet sick of the genre. (Science fiction. 12 & up)

Cindy Dobrez, Booklist US

Juliette, 17, feels as if she is a monster. Her touch causes pain-even death. She begins her story from an isolation room in a facility for undesirables, but everything changes when the leader of the Reestablishment offers to keep her by his side if she will agree to help quell the resurgence movement.

Juliette wants nothing to do with Warner and his evil ways, but she reconnects with one of his soldiers ,Adam, who is immune to her curse, and this lifelong friend becomes much more as he shatters her with the incredible sensation of a loving touch. There are plot conveniences and melodramatic writing to spare in this first novel, but it also offers a rip-roaring adventure and steamy romance scenes, along with a relationship that teens will root for as much as they did for Bella and Edward. Inventive touches also help propel the story, such as the text strikeouts that reveal Juliette's inner thoughts. The final chapters leave Juliette, Adam, and Warner well poised for round two.

ISBN: 9781742378206
ISBN-10: 174237820X
Audience: Teenager / Young Adult
For Ages: 14 - 18 years old
Format: Paperback
Language: English
Number Of Pages: 352
Published: 1st November 2011
Publisher: Allen & Unwin
Dimensions (cm): 19.8 x 12.9  x 2.300
Weight (kg): 0.325