Review: Destroy Me (Shatter Me, #1.5)

Author: Tahereh Mafi
Series: Shatter Me
Publication: October 2nd 2012
Publisher: HarperTeen
ebook, 150 pages
Buy: Amazon


When did Taheref Mafi go from being a debut author that intrigued and confused me to being on my very short list of authors whose works I buy without a second thought? I think Shatter Me is one of those books that kept changing and changing in my mind long after I finished reading it, becoming better every day, as it endured the test of time. I read a lot and I forget easily, it is a simple fact, but Tahereh Mafi never allowed herself to be forgotten. And she just sealed the deal with Unravel Me, which I was fortunate enough to read ahead of time and which turned out to be my second favorite book in 2012.

I didn’t like it… getting to know Warner, seeing a different side of him (not a better side, mind you, just one that made him clearer to me), and actually considering that he might be a better choice for our Juliette… Nope, I didn’t like it. I didn’t like it one bit. How can I feel so much love for a sociopath, a man damaged beyond salvation? Warner is cruel and frightening, but he also understands Juliette better than Adam ever could. The two of them are so alike, both abused by their parents, both living with so much ugliness on their conscience.

The life I know now is the only one that matters. The suffocation, the luxury, the sleepless nights, and the dead bodies. I’ve always been taught to focus on power and pain, gaining and inflicting.
I grieve nothing.
I take everything.

Because Juliette’s voice is so distinctive and closely connected to Mafi’s writing style in any reader’s mind, Mafi changed her writing completely for Warner, and it is the smartest thing she could have done. I’m not just talking about the absence of poetic descriptions and (in)famous strikethroughs, even the rhythm and sentence structure are different. This story from Warner’s point of view is clean and delivered with military precision, skillfully written and tightly controlled. Tahereh Mafi gave him a voice so unlike Juliette’s that there is no mistaking the two, and the contrast is made even more obvious by Juliette’s diary entries Warner discovers in her old cell room.

My mind is a warehouse of carefully controlled human emotions. I can almost see my brain as it functions, filing thoughts and images away. I lock away the things that do not serve me. I focus only on what needs to be done: the basic components of survival and the myriad things I must manage throughout the day.

And these diary entries… these words Juliette wrote down while she was in the asylum… even though there aren’t many of them, each and every one is so completely and utterly heartbreaking, her every thought, every memory is a new knife that finds its way into the reader’s heart.

This unusually long e-novella that takes place between the events of Shatter Me and Unravel Me is an absolute must-read for all Mafi’s fans. If I weren’t in the habit of reserving my five-star ratings only for books that really and truly take my breath away, I would have given Destroy Me those five shiny crowns. This way, it gets four and a half, but I need you to know it came very close, my friends. Very close indeed.