Unravel Me (Shatter Me #2) by Tahereh Mafi

 

“I am nothing more than the consequence of catastrophe.”

Juliette’s world is beginning to unravel.
Everything is falling apart changing.

Juliette has escaped to Omega Point-the headquarters of the rebel resistance. There she discovers other people with abilities. Abilities they have learned to control. And for the first time in her life, Juliette has hope. Hope that she can have a life with Adam. Hope that her touch can be used to save instead of destroy.

But Juliette is only just beginning to understand the depth of her power, and she’s struggling to fight the desire to use it. She’s still haunted by her past, terrified by her future, and too tempted by Warner, who still 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.

Personal Thoughts:

“I’m all out of letters. Fresh out of words. Someone has robbed me of my entire vocabulary.”

That quote above from Unravel Me perfectly describes my state when I finished reading Unravel Me and first attempted to write a review which obviously didn’t work. After reading Unravel Me, I feel like I’m no good to comment anything about Tahereh‘s work. She make me speechless and wordless, in fact I’m still trying to get my breath back after unknowingly forgotten how to breath while reading the last few chapters of Unravel Me. Now here I am again in front of an almost empty form trying to finally gather my thoughts for Tahereh’s wonderful work.

Unravel Me is an intense and breath taking sequel that not only offer thrilling and action packed story-line but also fully loaded with twist and turns, unexpected revelations and striking prose. From reestablishment moves and tactics, to characters previous lives, relationships and special powers. There so many things happening all at once that will keep your attention on hold and emotions up.

Tahereh’s writing is at it’s best once again. Her words are so rich and poetic that I could savour each of her lines again and again. I have no regrets reading and rereading her passages and I think I’ll be rereading the whole book or maybe the whole series all over again, while waiting for the next installment. Her unique and richly descriptive writing style will blow your mind as you savor every little detail of the world she is creating together with her characters.

I had a blast with Juliette’s inner thoughts, her unique and perceptive view of the world around her. She maybe locked up in cell or underground but she certainly know how to describe her surroundings. She can glaze and personified things by her insane metaphors  Metaphors that I love to read over and over again. They make me think, make me believe and make my imaginations soar.

“Hope.

It’s like a drop of honey, a field of tulips blooming in the springtime. It’s a fresh rain, a whispered promise, a cloudless sky, the perfect punctuation mark at the end of a sentence. And it’s the only thing in the world keeping me afloat.”

Tahereh weaved Juliette with a rich but complicated mind, boxed in loneliness, misjudgment and mistreatment. Juliette is insecure, unsure and scared most of the times. She do a lot of self-loathe to the point that I almost lost my patient waiting for her to see the present situation. I understand her but sometimes I just want her to move on and accept her real potential. Thank God there is Kenji to balance things out. He not only help Juliette in understanding and accepting her power but he also help me lessen my irritation to Juliette as he diverse my attention to his witty and funny antics.

It took a lot of pushes and mistakes before Juliette finally grasp and accept what she really is and what she can do, a growth that took a lot of time but nevertheless worth waiting. She is still broken but she is a much stronger person than she is in Shatter Me.

Adam though still sweet and caring to Juliette can’t still convinced me of his worth. He is a good guy but sometimes being good isn’t enough. As a guy I want to see more strength from him, especially now that they are on war. I don’t like the sensitive version of him who begs too much and clings too much to Juliette. He maybe doing all those things because he really loves the girl but too much always falls to the wrong side. I want to like him but I can’t do that if he is stucked with all the bad things happening to him. Enough with the self-pity party like Juliette please. You are not a girl to do that and you are a soldier remember? You are supposed to be a fighter  If you keep on doing that I can only pity you, and that’s not something I want to feel for a guy lead character.

It took awhile before Warner shows up in the story but when he finally come out, the story become much more engrossing. Just like his character, Warner surely can make changes to his atmosphere. His presence alone can make the difference. As always I am fascinated with him, actually intrigue is the right word. He’ still the complicated and most complex character of this series and Unravel Me did nothing else but proved and cement my theory about this boy.

In Shatter Me Warner caught my attention and keep me intrigue with him all throughout. In Destroy Me he makes me care for him as he open himself which shows the real depth of his character. In here, he simply floored me. He shows his softer and vulnerable side without fully stripping his tough and harsh exterior. Tahereh not only put mystery around him but also created him to be memorable because of the way Juliette sees him. Tahereh simply justapox him with the visceral way that Juliette sees him. He is simply too much!

The romance is mind blowing. Tahereh surprised me with her playful and teasing attack with her characters especially those two characters involved in chapter sixty-two. That chapter alone sent me to a lot of emotions. It is intense, literally breathtaking and heart-breaking. The interactions between the characters made me melt and somehow shattered my emotion to different level. The way Tahereh developed them and put them into emotional coaster ride is beyond intense.

“I want to be the friend you fall hopelessly in love with. The one you take into your arms and into your bed and into the private world you keep trapped in your head. I want to be that kind of friend,” he says.

“The one who will memorize the things you say as well as the shape of your lips when you say them. I want to know every curve, every freckle, every shiver of your body, Juliette–“

The plot is engrossing and flowing with lot of twist and turns. As Unravel Me focus on molding the characters it also provides follow up about the revolutions particularly the war between the reestablishment and the omega point. As Juliette got the chance to merge to the outside world she finally get the sense of the world around her, which gives readers some details to Tahereh’s version of dystopian future. Though there are still missing information which we can only hope to be reveal in the next book, it is still easy for us to feel the bleakness and difficulty of life outside.

Filled with striking and beautiful prose, unique characters, and engrossing plot, Unravel Me is a definitely a thrilling and intense read that can leave you emotionally wrecked and mentally engage. The most emotionally engaging book I’ve read this year so far. And with this kind of follow up from Tahereh, I can only expect an epic ending for the next and final installment to this unique dystopian series.