Spoilers for Shatter Me, A Court of Thorns and Roses by Sarah J. Maas, and The Hunger Games Trilogy by Suzanne Collins
*I wrote reviews for Shatter Me in parts as to keep my thoughts as fresh as possible.
Review of Chapters 1-31:
Recently, I started reading Shatter Me, and so far I am really enjoying it. I actually started reading it last summer and DNFed it due to life circumstances, not the book itself, so when I picked it back up, I already had some vague memories of it, which I think may have influenced my opinions of the book, particularly my thoughts on Adam, but I’ll get to that in a moment.
For starters, I am really interested in world-building. We see through Juliette’s memories that this was once and just recently the modern and normal world outside of Juliette’s condition, and this was within Juliette’s 17 years of life, so the seeming fall of the modern world happened VERY fast. Due to Juliette’s confinement, we really don’t even know how bad the world is yet. With this, I am really interested in seeing this because we normally see worlds super far after the collapse, such as Divergent or The Hunger Games, but this is closer to The Walking Dead in that our MC remembers normal life.
Of course, we also have to talk about Adam and Warner. So, in my first read, I read up through Juliette learning Adam was a soldier, so on this reread, I ultimately didn’t trust him when rereading the asylum bits. Now I feel like my distrust for him should’ve worn off, but it hasn’t. I feel it’s most likely influenced by me knowing Warner is the love interest and not Adam, but that doesn’t necessarily mean that you shouldn’t trust that character, because just because two characters don’t end up together doesn’t mean one is evil, but there’s something about Adam that I really can’t shake. He gives me early book Tamlin vibes, and I feel like he’s going to betray Juliette. Some of his actions and motivations don’t entirely sit right with me, especially when hearing Warner’s witty comments and seeming distrust of Adam, but also, if he truly didn’t trust him, why would he leave Juliette in his care? Unless, of course, it was because he thought he couldn’t touch her, but even if he thought Adam couldn’t get physically ge to her, wouldn’t he be worried that Adam could manipulate her? And if that were the case, he would’ve never removed the cameras from her room. For a while, I had convinced myself that the little boy Juliette killed by accident was actually Adam’s brother, but in chapter 31, we actually met James, so that’s not true. I was really convinced he was luring her away from Warner’s (misguided) protection so that he could take revenge on her.
We also just learned that Warner is probably able to touch her. Like Juliette had pointed out, it’s very unlikely that both Adam and Warner were capable of touching her, so I am highly suspicious of what makes those two characters so special. Speaking about Warner, I am VERY interested in learning about his family life. The touchiness of bringing up his mom and Adam saying no one really knows what that’s about is crazy interesting to me. That’s where my thoughts are currently on the book, so I will continue to update as I read through the series!
Review of Chapters 31-The End:
Chapter 31 really was the correct pausing point for this review, as it changed and the rest happened very quickly. We are properly introduced to Kenji Kishimoto, who I LOVE. He had previously been in a small scene, so I was hoping he would make a comeback, so I’m very happy to see him. I also really liked how quickly he fell into the big brother role for James despite drugging him.
Then we get to Omega Point, and as soon as we got there and met Mr. Castle. I immediately had thoughts on Omega Point. For one, the phrase was originally coined by Teilhard de Chardin to describe universal evolution. I took a class that taught this once, but honestly I understand it just as much now as I did then, which is baseline knowledge. What I do know is it is a move in the universe from disorganization to organization. Mafi was very clever in using the name of this concept as the name of this organization that has plans to do just that. My issue with Omega Point and Mr. Castle is that it feels like the utopia problem: that no such thing as a utopia can ever exist. As soon as we arrived, I immediately thought “Oh so we’re at District 13”. There is absolutely no way in my mind that this organization stays a positive movement in the books. It is very much a “We can do better, so we take down the government and create our own, which will be just as corrupt”. I’ve been shown no proof of this in the books, but that is my immediate response and reaction. I also really enjoyed learning that Juliette wasn’t the only one in the universe with powers and that we were going to explore that. I do feel like I was slightly disappointed by the end of the book; there wasn’t really a driving force for me to pick up the next book because I absolutely HAD to find out what happened next, but I still did, so that says what it does. I was disappointed; however really enjoying this book and look forward to seeing what happens next.