Tahereh Mafi’s Shatter Me series has done it again with her second installment, Unravel Me. Her unique, poetic prose and unusual lack of commas continues to produce a great piece of writing that has left me once again in awe. After the events of Shatter Me, we see Juliette adapting to a life of security and comfort within the compound of Omega Point. Early in, we see that she isn’t the only one with abilities. Many are introduced and some, even surface from those we’ve already met.
“Jesus. How early is it?’ Winston asks. ‘I would kick a soldier in the crotch for a cup of coffee right now.”
That’s Winston. He’s just one of many people at Omega Point with a peculiar ability like Juliette and his veins run coffee. He’s a hardcore caffeine addict and I love him so much more for it. He brought another level of humour to the story that wasn’t present in the first. And this is not his only comment about the lack of coffee present in this war ravaged world.
“Crazy. Anyway, if we don’t get a fresh batch of coffee today, I am seriously going to lose my shit.”
Like I said he can’t function without it! And if we were all honest, many of us have probably had this exact feeling too! Relatable and absolutely hilarious!
This whole book centers around using Juliette as a voice against The Reestablishment rather than a weapon. The biggest reason I loved this book was how much you see Juliette grow. She actually takes steps to improve on her poorly dealt hand and she learns to thrive on it. She learns to use her ability for good and snaps out of her worry in harming others. Yes, it happens later in the book but that’s realistic, it’s not something anyone would get over instantly, so why should she? And when she does, she embraces it and is determined to keep it in control.
It always kind of confused me on why she never got out of the asylum in book 1 on her own. Her ability to kill with just a touch would have made breaking out an easy mission and yet she never did. She couldn’t face hurting anyone, friend or foe which I found a little disorienting because they treated her like an animal and she had every reason to fight back, but she never stooped to that level. So what I thought to be stupidity on her part, I came to realize was actually a strength. She would never allow herself to kill anyone even if it meant her own life. This is why I admire and respect her so heavily, especially in this book, because she is exactly the right person to fight and lead a rebellion. Her morals are highly regulated because of her unlucky and unwanted ability and rather than hiding away like Adam wants, she is determined to not let anyone live a life without freedom. I just have massive amounts of respect for her growth and I’m so glad to have seen it incorporated so soon without it being unrealistic.
“Sometimes I wonder about glue. No one ever stops to ask glue how it’s holding up. If it’s tired of sticking things together or worried about falling apart or wondering how it will pay its bills next week. Kenji is kind of like that. He’s like glue. He works behind the scenes to keep things together and I’ve never stopped to think about what his story might be. Why he hides behind the jokes and the snark and the snide remarks.”
One of my most favourite parts of this series, is any scene with Kenji. He livens the whole plot and seems to be able to a crack a joke as easily as saying the right thing at precisely the right moment. He can be a jokester or a shoulder to cry on and every time you can tell that he is genuine. You learn more of his own story in this book and once you do, you can tell how much this comparison makes sense. He is the one that helps bridge the gaps to bring everything together, and much of it is done without recognition. His friendship with Juliette was amazing as it was unlikely. He was friends (ish) with Adam in Shatter Me and they didn’t have much interaction and then we see them actually develop a really great and strong friendship in this book and it shows how much Juliette needed someone and I’m glad she found it in Kenji because these two are adorable! Juliette seems to need someone to tell her how bad life is (and to be fair she has been locked up) and Kenij is more than happy to do it and his brutal honesty is perfect. This is why their relationship works as well as it does. It’s built on mutual respect.
“Now I am trying,’ he says, ‘to give you a chance to fix things. I keep giving you opportunities to do things differently. To see past the sad little girl you used to be—the sad little girl you keep clinging to—and stand up for yourself. Stop crying. Stop sitting in the dark and counting out all of your individual feelings about how sad and lonely you are. Wake up. You’re not the only person in this world who doesn’t want to get out of bed in the morning. You’re not the only one with daddy issues and screwed up DNA. You can be whoever the hell you want to be now. You’re not with your shitty parents anymore. You’re not in that shitty asylum, and you’re no longer stuck being Warner’s shitty little experiment. So make a choice.”
And she does. Kenji is definitely good for her. And just like in Shatter Me, he gives another refreshing speech on how much the world sucks and how you just have to deal with it. If I’m being honest, he’s rather good at it and it makes me love him so much more because it shows that he’s more than just your typical “funny guy” character. But don’t get me wrong, I still live for his hilarious comments! Like this one about him, Adam and James sharing a room at Omega Point.
“Listen, I don’t have a clue what you see in this guy,’ he says, ‘but you should try living with him. The man is moody as hell.’
‘
I’m not moody—
‘Yeah, bro.’ Kenji puts his utensils down. ‘You are moody. It’s always ‘Shut up, Kenji’
‘Go to sleep, Kenji’ ‘No one wants to see you naked, Kenji’. When I know for a fact, that there are thousands of people who would love to see me naked—
‘You should count yourself lucky that I’m sitting with you at your table. I’m making you cool by association.”
This is why I love him. And he also brings up my next point, Adam. Boy did I not like Adam in this book. As Juliette soared in growth, his plummeted. He was such a nice and sweet guy in the first book and then we see him do a 180 and now he’s all awkward, angry and brooding, depending on the situation.
“Adam has to work to defend himself against me and I’m exhausting him. I’m making him sick and I’m weakening his body and if he ever slips again. If he ever forgets. If he ever makes a mistake or loses focus or becomes too aware of the fact he’s using his gift to control what I might do—I could hurt him. I could kill him.”
Now we know why Adam can withstand Juliette’s lethal touch; it’s his ability. Mafi definitely dropped a bomb onto readers with this twist but as I kept reading I became glad for it. Juliette isn’t the same girl he broke out. He became very overbearing and almost desperate and Juliette handled it pretty well.
“Because my skin will never change. All the training in the world won’t remove the very real possibility that could hurt him. Kill him. Especially during the most tender moments. The moments I want most. Those are the things I can never have with him and he deserves so much more than me.”
She acted like an adult and broke things off because she knew it couldn’t work. Not that she didn’t love him (because she still did) but because she could truly kill him and that was something she couldn’t forgive. This romantic story plot took much of the book to resolve and even then, Adam is still angry which only supports how much they weren’t actually compatible.
“What I really want to say is who the hell are you and who are you to decide who gets to die. Who are you to decide who should be killed. Who are you to tell me which father I should destroy and which child I should orphan and which mother should be left without her son, which brother should be left without a sister, which grandmother should spend the rest of her life crying in the early hours of the morning because the body of her grandchild was buried in the ground before her own.”
She’s asking all the right questions! She sees what needs fixing and this is the book where we see Juliette step up. She’s no longer thinking of herself but for the people as a whole! Love it!
I love how everything Juliette does Mafi explains. Readers are never left in the dark when decisions are made. This is a really great feature to have because you won’t be enraged by the change in direction because you’ll see it coming because you have 100 % of the facts that led to it.
Another great thing about this series is definitely the relatability/humor Mafi has created within her character’s thoughts.
“And I think, Wow. I did it. I actually managed to die of a stroke at age 17.”
Ok, this right here had me bursting with laughter! Like honestly, Unravel Me has a lot of these moments, moments where it seems as if the world is laughing at Juliette because everything is not going well. As soon as she’s happy she’s struck down. First with Adam and then again when Castle gives her Warner duty. God, it makes you feel so bad for her.
“I want to laugh one of those strange, high-pitched delusional laughs that signals the end of a person’s sanity. Because this world, I think, has a terrible, terrible sense of humor. It always seems to be laughing at me. At my expense. Making my life infinitely more complicated all the time. Ruining all of my best-laid plans by making every choice so difficult. Making everything so confusing. I can’t touch the boy I love. But I can use my touch to strengthen the boy who tried to kill the one I love. No one, I want to tell the world, is laughing.”
Again, different context but same story. So relatable it’s not funny.
“I promise you,’ he says. ‘I never would have kissed you if I didn’t think you want me to.”
Ok, before I started reading this series, I had known that Juliette and Warner were the OTP couple and after reading Shatter Me I couldn’t wrap my head around that. I didn’t like Warner in the first book at all and yet after finishing this one I feel like he’s turned the tables on me. When Adam fell, Warner rose. You can tell how genuine he is and his feelings for Juliette are, which leaves you thinking that he might just be a good guy after all. Deep, deep down.
“I will not be your clown!’ He breaks away from me. ‘I will not allow you to make a mockery of my feelings for you! I could respect your decision to shoot me, Juliette, but doing this—doing—doing what you just did—It’s the play of a coward,’ he says. ‘I thought you were so much better than that. I thought you could love be for me,’ he says. ‘I thought you would be the one person in this godforsaken world who would accept me as I am! I thought you, of all people, would understand.’ His face is right in front of mine when he says, ‘I was wrong. I was so horribly, horribly wrong.”
This statement hit home. It was deep and moving and he actually manages to expose Juliette for her wrongdoing rather than bringing to surface everything he’s done. He’s a genius that one. And one that I’ve actually come to like, which I never thought I would say haha! And the way he put Juliette in her place made me respect him.
Boy, that ending was insane!!! To not spoil, I’ll include it in my next review J But there are so many feelings!!!
This book was just as addictive as the first!