Unravel Me

Unravel Me
By: Tahereh Mafi
Reported by: Julianna Helms
Source: ARC via ALA
Release date: February 5th, 2013 via HarperTeen/HarperCollins

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.

-Summary from Goodreads || Purchase: Mrs. Nelson's

I liked Unravel Me. There isn't much in my memory about how exactly it impacted me, but I remember that I liked it.

But I don't remember that I loved it.



Tahereh's writing is quite gorgeous (but also very egregious and takes a lot of patience to read and get used to, and isn't exactly everyone's cup-of-tea), and her metaphors perfectly represent a mentally unstable girl who's been hated since her first touch. But sometimes writing isn't enough to masquerade the fact that just because the heroine hates her life doesn't give her the privilege of acting (or, rather, not-acting) stupidly while everyone else is putting their lives out on the front line.

I get it, I get it. Juliette is a mess. Thank goodness Kenji yelled at her to stop being a mopey TSTL protagonist right before I shut the book, though. Man, Kenji, I gotta give you props. You're awesome. We should be friends.

Anyways. So, let's talk about the romance really quick. Adam, it seemed, had little impact on me in this book. I prized his and Juliette's relationship, but soon he became to tumultuous and emotional for me to really connect with him. He was too... unruly. Not in a lucid sort of making-you-blush-ness, but moreso that he was... ah, yes. Unraveled. He and Juliette were both unraveled. Granted, I felt sympathy for them, but it's hard to feel much when your feelings are put next to the melodramatic proclamations of a mentally loose girl.

I feel like I'm a jerk for not sympathizing much with Juliette, but then again, people were furious over Tris in Insurgent (I had no problem with it, actually). I'm not angry at Juliette for being mentally crooked; I'm angry because it took her a long to realize that she had all the help and support she needed right by her side, all servile  and patient and understanding until it was all too much to wait for.

Overall: I am now Team Warner, despite the fact that he disgusted/amused me in Shatter Me (which my starred review of is here, by the way). Juliette earned back my trust in the end. The writing still conforms me to Juliette's fear more claustrophobically and talentedly than many authors I've read. And the story is incredibly engaging, if unoriginal and predictable. Unravel Me fell a bit short of the phenomenon that is Shatter Me, but that's largely due to the fact that my feelings about the writing has slowly changed and faded over time. Yet, it's not a story to be missed, especially if you're in for some fantastic action scenes.   


It's going to be a long wait until Book 3, but I'm starting the countdown now.