Review: Unravel Me (Shatter Me #2) by Tahereh Mafi

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Title:  Unravel Me
Author: Tahereh Mafi
Publisher/Year: Harper Collins Publishers 2/5/13
Length:  461 pages
Series: Shatter Me #2

Overview

tick tick tick tick tick it’s almost time for war.

Juliette has escaped to Omega Point. It is a place for people like her—people with gifts—and it is also the headquarters of the rebel resistance.

She’s finally free from The Reestablishment, free from their plan to use her as a weapon, and free to love Adam. But Juliette will never be free from her lethal touch.

Or from Warner, who 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.

My Thoughts

Oh how the suspense makes me fear what a book will really be like.  Especially when you get a novella in the middle as a tied me over and it really is a good story albeit not one that’s really aligned in the timeline of the story.

in any event, i think that even with my toddler amount of patience and wild imagination, there were places that this second installment took us that even i was unprepared for.

so…we meet up with Adam, Kenji and Juliette at Omega Point where Kenji took them as a safe haven and because they too wanted Juliette for her super human powers.  As a refresher for those of you who may not have read Shatter Me yet, Juliette has this power that she can incapacitate anyone who touches her skin.  she was put into an asylum when she was just 14 because she inadvertently killed a toddler just by her Touch.

Adam knew Juliette growing up and enlisted in the Army as a means to provide for his brother since his mother and father ‘died’.  Kenji was in the army with Adam and was his best friend for a while when they were there.

Adam was then sent to hunt Juliette and bring her back to Warner who oversees Sector 45 and is the son of the COMMANDER SUPREME.  Warner held her hostage, adam and she escape, kenji tracked them down and somehow they got to Omega Point.

so that basically takes us to where we are – Juliette finds that Adam is alive and is getting better, she meets Castle who runs the place along with various others who ALL have super powers.  She continues to develop her relationship with Adam since they know that he’s able to touch her for some unknown reason….and being the only person (other than Warner) who can do that – it’s something that they revel in.

So….Juliette has a hard time ‘adjusting’ since she’s not sure if she trusts the motives for Castle wanting her at Omega Point, things are getting very strange outside because Warner and his guards are hunting even more aggressively trying to find Omega Point because they have even more reason to believe that it exists and that there’s something brewing, and there’s just so much complicated stuff going on.

While at OP, Juliette discovers that her 2 past bouts of super human strength actually weren’t flukes and that she’s possibly the stronger super human to be found yet – she almost single handedly destroys the place when she thinks that Adam’s being harmed without his consent.

See..the thing with OP is that they do thorough testing to determine what someone’s power is and they’ve decided that since Adam can touch Juliette that he must have some type of power of his own…and there’s the rub.  Something not so good is going on, and it’s taking a toll on his body and there are consequences here.

So Juliette gets mad, almost destroys the place and has even more to deal with since her relationship is now falling apart romantically and she’s made no effort otherwise to make friends with those there.

Outside of OP, Warner is desperately trying to find Juliette.  he’s angry that she got away but he’s also so in love with her that he’s not willing to let go.  It’s only when 4 of the OP residents get taken hostage and 2 get freed, and Warner is taken as a trade for the others that Juliette realizes that there’s much much much more going on here.  Shes a bundle of messy teen angsty nerves and i have to say that i kind of like what’s going on.

So…so much going on that i feel like i have to hold back and not talk about the parts that i loved but pose a few questions that might be considered leading.

so SPOILER WARNING.  I’m going to try really hard not to blab anything, but my questions might give away a few things

1) can we trust Warner?  Do we want to?

2) what’s going to happen with Adam? his health?

3) Does anderson know about his son(s)?

4) Does anderson know about powers (since he knows about Omega Point) and does he have any?

5) Will Juliette be able to use her powers for the right team and which side is the right side?

6) are you team Aaron or Adam?

so, i really can’t for the third installment of what i believe to still be an untitled story.  Thanks for another amazing step into dystopian fantasy!

Re-Review: Shatter Me (Shatter Me #1) by Tahereh Mafi

I’ve been staring at the cover of Unravel Me for about a week now trying to get ready to read it, and realized that i owed it to myself to do a quick re-read of Shatter Me – the first book in the series.  I needed to make sure that i was fully up to speed on what happened, with whom, and it what order and what i needed to remember.

so for those of you that haven’t read it yet, we’re introduced to Juliette who is 17 and has been locked up in an asylum because she’s got some ‘power’ where she can’t touch another living person because she will kill them through some power in her skin.  the reason that she’s been locked up is because she accidentally killed a child that she was trying to help and her parents and society didn’t have any other option for her.

What I need to point out here is that society has gone to shit (at least that’s what people think because of what they’ve been told), and the ‘Re-Establishment’ has taken control of the world in the hopes of overpowering everyone else of influence and creating their own super power.

So while Juliette is locked up, after about a year of solitary isolation, she’s given a cell-mate and a guy at that.  she doesn’t know what to make of it and thinks that they are trying to kill her off or something like that.  Well…after a little bit of time, she begins to get these little flashes of recognition of her cell-mate – his eyes mostly really remind her of something/someone from her past.

After a few weeks of sharing a cell, they are ‘broken out’ by the reestablishment and to Juliette’s dismay, she learns that her cellmate is a soldier, sent in to make sure that she wasn’t truly crazy as many in the asylum are, and to bring her to Warner who is the head of Sector 45.  Warner knows of Juliette’s powers and wants to use her for his own benefit.

so…Juliette has become a pawn, and all the while didn’t know what to expect and who to trust.  Not long after she’s been taken by Warner, she learns that her cellmate Adam really is the kid that she knew from her past, and that they actually shared a mutual opinion of one another.  They weren’t ever able to talk to each other, but they both saw something powerful that drew each one to the other that it grew into someone quite unique.

Now that Juliette is captive, and Adam was used as the means to bring her in, they’ve had the opportunity to talk about their feelings from the past and realize that they actually share the same mutual respect and love for each other.

That’s when things get hairy.  See…Adam knows that it’s not safe for them to be there, and Juliette has no intention of helping Warner do what he wants, meaning that she HAS to get away.  They take an opportunity to escape and run as fast and as far away as they can.

In their travels, they come to a safe haven where they think they can hide for a bit until they are discovered not too long after arriving.  it’s Kenji , Adam’s best friend from the army and there’s confusion as to how he knew where to find them.  Low and behold, Adam and Juliette have to make a decision about whether to trust Kenji or not, and in this story, you’re never quite sure what’s real and what’s being made to seem one way or another.

In any event, i’m really excited about Unravel Me since there’s a lot that i want answers to.

1) What makes Juliette the way that she is?

2) what happens with Juliette and Adam

3) what’s the deal with Warner?  what’s in store for him?

4) Omega Point?  What’s that?