Shatter Me

Author: Tahereh Mafi
Series: Shatter Me, #1
Publisher: HarperTeen
Release Date: October 2, 2012

I have a curse.
I have a gift.

I am a monster.
I'm more than human.

My touch is lethal.
My touch is power.

I am their weapon.
I will fight back.

No one knows why Juliette's touch is fatal, but the Reestablishment has plans for her. Plans to use her as a weapon. But Juliette has plans of her own. After a lifetime without freedom, she's finally discovering a strength to fight back for the very first time—and to find a future with the one boy she thought she lost forever.

In this electrifying debut, Tahereh Mafi presents a riveting dystopian world, a thrilling superhero story, and an unforgettable heroine.

I can't believe I'm saying this, but Shatter Me... was a pretty decent book. It's not great by any means, but it's not terrible either. I had read the negative reviews and cringed at the first few pages, but by that time, I had already been given a signed copy of Shatter Me and Unravel Me. Passing them over to someone who might better appreciate them was out of the question, given my name was written in capital letters on each title page, so I decided to give them a shot before I would leave them on the shelf for dust to settle. You can imagine my surprise when I found it was nowhere near as awful as I expected.

I've been locked up for 264 days.

I have nothing but a small notebook and a broken pen and the numbers in my head to keep me company. 1 window. 4 walls. 144 square feet of space 26 letters in an alphabet. I haven't spoken in 264 days of isolation.

6,336 hours since I've touched another human being.

Juliette has spent most of her life imprisoned in an asylum, grasping at the remains of whatever sanity and goodness she still has inside of her. In her little room is a window, one that keeps her wondering how the outside has changed since she left it.

All I ever wanted was to reach out and touch another human being not just with my hands but with my heart.

Excuse me as I throw up in my mouth. Juliette is about as bland as young adult heroines come. Like I haven't read about skinny, white brunettes that don't have many friends and hate themselves for what they are. The only thing that marks her different is the purple prose metaphors and similes that run rampant through her mind, some of which don't even make sense. Sure, she's not all up there, but it gets to a point where it's too much. I'm not even sure if the author meant for the nonsensical metaphors to point to her mental state. As for the crossed-out lines that littered the pages, sometimes they bothered me, but not as much as I thought they would. Juliette's major fault is that she's generic.

Hello.

World.

You will forget me.

Sorry, synopsis. I'll have to agree with her on this one.

After the world was struck with a cataclysmic catastrophe, the people have been governed by The Reestablishment. Like others of its kind in dystopian fiction, the Reestablishment rules with an iron fist, reeking of greed, lies, and corruption. They had ripped Juliette from her family and placed her in the asylum all those years ago, waiting for the right moment to mold her as their weapon.

In other words, new government = bad. Rebels = good.

To avoid this terrible fate, Juliette must escape with a boy she loves and aid a revolution and blah, blah, blah, superpowers, blah, Adam, blah.

Yes, a boy she loves. There's a love triangle, guys. There's a love triangle.

[Adam's] lips soften into a smile that cracks apart my spine.

He repeats my name like the word amuses him. Entertains him. Delights him.

In seventeen years no one has said my name like that.

Adam is just as unremarkable as Juliette. He's a good guy, but there's nothing that really picks him apart from love interests like Quince from Forgive My Fins, Ben from Juliet Immortal, Hasani from Every Last Kiss, and so on. While it's easy to believe that Juliette, having been kept in isolation for weeks, fell in love with Adam in a matter of days, his declaration of love was kind of a shocker since I didn't believe that he spent enough time with her to reach that depth. That includes their past.

Warner, Juliette's other man, is messed up, which made his declaration was more understandable and his side of the corner more intriguing. The stars are mostly for him (and a little bit of Kenji) because, like I said, I am a sick, sick bastard who finds fictional psychopaths, unhealthy obsession, and heart-breaking desperation so interesting. It's always been my guilty reading pleasure, although I would, as I've also said before, be entirely against these kinds of things in a real life setting.

Off-topic, but I realized that my feelings for Juliette, Adam, and Warner are almost the same as my feelings for Juliet, Ben, and Romeo from Juliet Immortal. At least Shatter Me was better written.

City of a Thousand Dolls

Author: Miriam Forster
Series: Bhinian Empire, #1
Publisher: HarperTeen
Release Date: February 5, 2013

An exotic treat set in an entirely original, fantastical world brimming with deadly mystery, forbidden romance, and heart-stopping adventure.

Nisha was abandoned at the gates of the City of a Thousand Dolls when she was just a child. Now sixteen, she lives on the grounds of the isolated estate, where orphan girls apprentice as musicians, healers, courtesans, and, if the rumors are true, assassins. Nisha makes her way as Matron's assistant, her closest companions the mysterious cats that trail her shadow. Only when she begins a forbidden flirtation with the city's handsome young courier does she let herself imagine a life outside the walls. Until one by one, girls around her start to die.

Before she becomes the next victim, Nisha decides to uncover the secrets that surround the girls' deaths. But by getting involved, Nisha jeopardizes not only her own future in the City of a Thousand Dolls—but her own life.

To think I actually thought about turning away this novel because it had factions. Just another reason to curse the growing number of dystopian novels of late, and to thank the heavens for the book's beautiful cover, charming author, disability and South Asian representation convincing me otherwise. And don't worry, City of a Thousand Dolls comes nowhere near to the awfully-done Stormdancer.

"You have been invaluable to me as an assistant and as a source of information." [Matron] hesitated. "And I'm afraid that your value to me has put you in great danger."

Nisha is the Matron's bitch. She tidies her room, does her errands, and reports to her whenever something peculiar catches her eye, allowing Nisha to move freely between Houses. Shockingly, her recent report doesn't contain the usual out-of-stock hairpin notice or the occasional girl unhappy with her House, but a body found at the very center of the City of a Thousand Dolls. As the Redeeming, the most important event of the city, approaches and the Matron's hands become full with the new Council Head who seeks to take her city for himself, Nisha, with the help of a sarcastic clan of talking cats, is sent to investigate.

"There are more secrets in the City than you can possibly know. Which ones do you really care about?"

While City of a Thousand Dolls may sometimes lack the maturity or complexity of similarly-themed novels, I enjoyed reading it for what it was. Nisha, though a touch bland, had turned out to be a strong-willed protagonist that I've come to adore. She makes mistakes and she learns from them, a simple thing I can't say for most young adult protagonists. She tries so hard to do the right thing, no matter what tries to bring her down. I empathized strongly with her sense of loneliness and feelings of being trapped within the estate, finding parallels with my current situation to hers. I won't get into that, for obvious reasons, but I think you get the picture.

She was just Nisha. And she needed to be free.

Much of the first half of the book is comprised of world-building, and the synopsis was right. For once, the "entirely original, fantastical world brimming with deadly mystery" was not a lie. Miriam Forster's love for her work shone between the lines, a first for me, and I share in that love. The author had clearly done her research and expressed it in a respectful way. People of Color and disabled characters are in abundance, as well as powerful women and women of power. There's no shame in what the House of Pleasure does. I loved how she handled Nisha's romance with the men in her life and how it isn't the only kind of love that's touched upon. And if an author can make you ship a human with a cat, you know they have some serious skill. Although I wish there was something... more, City of a Thousand Dolls was amazing by itself and not a novel any reader should pass up. Now if you'll excuse me, I'm off to go draw some terrible fanart.

Team Human

Authors: Justine Larbalestier, Sarah Rees Brennan
Series: None
Publisher: HarperTeen
Release Date: July 3, 2012

Just because Mel lives in New Whitby, a city founded by vampires, doesn't mean she knows any of the blood-drinking undead personally. They stay in their part of town; she says in hers. Until the day a vampire shows up at her high school. Worse yet, her best friend, Cathy, seems to be falling in love with him. It's up to Mel to save Cathy from a mistake she might regret for all eternity!

On top of trying to help Cathy (whether she wants it or not), Mel is investigating a mysterious disappearance for another friend and discovering the attractions of a certain vampire wannabe. Combine all this with a cranky vampire cop, a number of unlikely romantic entanglements, and the occasional zombie, and soon Mel is hip-deep in an adventure that is equal parts hilarious and touching.

Acclaimed authors Justine Larbalestier and Sarah Rees Brennan team up to create a witty and poignant story of cool vampires, warm friendships, and the changes that test the bonds of love.

I never knew I could feel physical pain from giving a low rating to a book, if only a little. Team Human was sold to me as a detective, vampire parody lead by a headstrong, street-smart Chinese teen girl. It isn't often we get Asian protagonists in any novel and being Asian myself, I was more than ready to love this book. What can I say? I'm biased that way. Couple that with Sarah Rees Brennan's dry but witty writing style, I expected a fun, light read that would have me laughing out loud.

I have never been so wrong.

He was also cold. Not ice cold, but cool like water is at room temperature. It was wrong. People should be 98.6 degrees, not 72.

I gave creepy, cold Francis a bright smile, clapped my hands together, and said: "Can you believe summer is over? Hands up, who's going to miss the sunshine?

Mel is the equivalent of a racist. There is no denying that, and no one can convince me otherwise. Whenever she belittled or openly mocked Francis or vampires in general, for that matter, I saw red. Although I enjoy sneering at perfect, romanticized vampires as much as the next girl, it's one thing to make fun of them in fiction; it's entirely different to make fun of one that lives alongside you. If vampires were living, (non-)breathing creatures of our world, I sure as hell wouldn't start cracking jokes at their expense. I don't care if they have ridiculously archaic names. I don't care if they act like they live in the past. I don't care if they become the most disgustingly perfect beings that ever existed. If they led civil lifestyles and didn't hunt humans for food, there is no excuse to be treating them like dirt. Though not exactly people, they are pretty damn close to it and are certainly not animals.

"A true lady would never dream of discussing her health in mixed company," I told him.

"Is everything humorous to you?" Francis inquired with some asperity.
The would be Francis-speak for "snippy."

"Not everything," I said. "But it's really the only way to deal with you."

Francis's lip curled. "I deal with you, as you put it, but remaining courteous despite your ill-judged attempts at humor."

"Everyone else laughs at my jokes," I said. "Oh sorry, I forgot. You can't do that, can you?"

Because of Mel's cruel attitude against vampires, she was extremely hard to sympathise with, and I had to constantly fight the urge to throw the book against the wall for her prejudice. By the end, she does seem to have a change of heart to some extent but as they say, too little, too late.

Aside from the species-ism, I was appalled by a certain snide comment about the stereotypical mean girl, anorexic cheerleaders who threw themselves at Francis, and Mel's harsh judgments about dying patients that would rather live longer as a vampire than accept the embrace of death as a human. At this point, the only thing that potentially made Mel redeemable was her friendship with Cathy.

"Come on, Frankie, she's like a million years younger than you. Where's this going to lead except to breaking her heart?"

After a few days of embarking on her relationship with Francis, Cathy decides to become a vampire as soon as possible. Her friends and even Francis himself are astonished, and each make various attempts to dissuade her from making an incredible life-changing decision so soon. I understand that Cathy is beyond her years and she's given a considerable amount of thought of whether it's worth the risk but like everyone else, I wish she had waited longer. Not just for herself, but for her friends and her family to adjust to the idea. It is her choice, but her choice affects everyone around her.

Another human who looks forward to becoming a vampire is Kit, the boy who was raised by one. He and Mel hold strong attraction towards each other, but she turns him away because of his unwillingness to remain as he is. Their romance, although interesting, invoked little more than a shrug and a "meh" from me, with the exception of the cellphone scene, which I found adorable.

The authors managed to explain their alternate world very well, the humor present in the book was reminiscent of Cassandra Clare, and the detective-sleuthing was pulled off nicely. If not for Mel, Team Human might have been given a solid three.