Title: Believe Me
Author: Tahereh Mafi
Publisher/Year: HarperCollins Publishing 11/16/21
Length: 96 Pages
Series: Shatter Me #6.5
Overview
The devastatingly romantic fifth novella in the New York Times and USA Today bestselling Shatter Me series, chronicling the events after Imagine Me, the explosive sixth novel.
Juliette and Warner fought hard to take down the Reestablishment once and for all. Life in the aftermath isn’t easy, as they and their friends at the Sanctuary work with their limited resources to stabilize the world.
Warner has his sights set on more than just politics. Since he proposed to Juliette two weeks ago, he’s been eager to finally marry her, the person he loves more than anything and has endured so much to be with. But with so much chaos around them, it’s been nearly impossible for them to have a wedding. And even Juliette has been distracted by everything they need to do.
At long last, Warner and Juliette’s future together is within reach, but the world continues to try to pull them apart. Will they finally be able to be happily, officially, together?
My Thoughts
It’s been a minute since I was last with this series and i’ll never be able to truly sort out if/when we have gotten to the end of what our creative author has given us. In this novella, we are now past the worst of it we think – Ella/Juliette is alive and well, and she and Warner have a chance at their happy ending.
Of course though, you will remember (I hope?) from the last book that things didn’t end perfectly. While they were trying to clean things up to rebuild, destroying buildings that were deemed to be unsafe, Kenji followed ordered and knocked down a building….that housed the design studio that was making Ella’s dress. So…no wedding dress…GASP!
That of course sets the tone for everything in this novella. We watch how they try to make those arrangements work and well, they just don’t. The wedding gets postponed because the world is still so unsettled. We watch how there’s a need for Ella/Juliette to go out into the world, but Warner is so worried for her safety that he doesn’t let that happen. People pull them apart in every moment and direction and we wonder if they will ever get what they have waited so long for.
We want to believe that love will be enough for them, especially through all the books that we read about their start, middle and now ending? but….it seems like they will just have to wait until another moment in time because the need for order, and power, and unity is more important than romance.
So, as a reader, of course when I finished this book, I went online to see if there’s more to the story coming since if you’ll remember, it was intended as a trilogy that was extended. Well, it seems as though there’s nothing more planned, but the ending here hints at there being a need for more. Is that the game of Ms Mafi? leaving us on another cliff should she decide that she’ll continue the story – knowing that there’s more that we could get, or ….we are just left with an open ended ending? I don’t know and it’s going to bug me. But, it shouldn’t keep you guys from reading this one so…enjoy!