It's Monday! What Are You Reading? Book Review: Unravel Me

Title: Unravel Me

Author: Tahereh Mafi

Publication Date: February 5, 2013

Publisher: HarperCollins

Genre: Fantasy, dystopian

Pages: 461

Age Rating: Readers over 13

My Opinion: 9/10

Hi, Readers!

       Usually, I am against trilogies and sequels, but... the Shatter Me trilogy, by Tahereh Mafi, has completely captured my attention, and I am sharing it with you for this week's It's Monday!  What Are You Reading?, a blogging meme hosted by Book Journey, Teach Mentor Texts, and Unleashing Readers.  I just finished reading Shatter Me (read my review here) a few weeks ago, and I had to get my hands on its sequel, Unravel Me, ASAP.  Thank you, public library!  Now that I've finished it, I am dying to read book three.  

       Juliette is back in action, and she has joined a powerful movement at Omega Point to resist The Reestablishment, a communistic organization that has taken over the world.  However, her life is getting more complicated due to the fact that her touch is lethal and she is surrounded by more humans than she has seen in her entire life.  Juliette comes to the discovery that her touch is slowly draining the powers of her boyfriend, Adam, and she must decide between love and safety.  Also, the supreme leader of The Reestablishment is on a mission to capture Juliette in order to punish his own son, Warner, who has fallen in love with her.  As secrets come out and trust is broken, Juliette must learn to rely on her new Omega Point friends if she wants to survive a showdown with The Reestablishment.

       The best part of Unravel Me is that Juliette's friends are not afraid to tell her that she is acting like a jerk.  This made me extremely happy when I was reading because too many dystopian heroines end up acting in a self-centered and annoying way.  Juliette's friend, Kenji, tells it like it is - if Juliette doesn't complete her Omega Point missions, he is the first one to let her know that she needs to step it up.  I love the honesty of the characters throughout the novel.  Plus, another very pleasing aspect of Unravel Me is that author Tahereh Mafi is not afraid to include controversy in her writing.  I loved reading about Juliette's conflicted feelings about Adam and Warner and how she grew as a person throughout the novel.

       One downer about Unravel Me is that Tahereh Mafi sort of, well, forgot to include her ingenious writing style from Shatter Me.  In Shatter Me, Mafi used lines through words (like this) to show what Juliette was really thinking.  However, she only includes this interesting writing technique a couple of times in the whole novel, which was a little disappointing.  My only other complaint about the novel is that there seems to be a lot of description in the first few chapters, but once you get past the initial intro, the book is quite exciting.

The Shatter Me series

       Mafi's Unravel Me was a great deal more suspenceful and thrilling than Shatter Me, which is saying a lot.  I can honestly say that I cannot wait to read the final book in the trilogy, Ignite Me, which just came out on February 4.  I highly recommend the series to teen readers, especially females, who love dystopian and action-packed novels.

Happy reading!