Published: November 15 2011 by: Harper
Rating: 3 Stars
I wanted to read this book for a long time, because a lot of people said that it would be like the Divergent series. I have to say, that the book was a great, easy read. However it could have been a lot better due to some things that were very annoying.
The book is about Juliette, a teenage girl who was born with a terrible curse: she cannot touch anyone or she will quite literally, break them .Her strength is greater than anything. She was sentenced to be locked up in an asylum for her entire life, while her futuristic town starves due to corruption and environmental problems. Then in comes Adam, a cellmate willing to help her in anyway possible. Soon Juliette finds herself being caught up in luxury, after the government tells her to be on their side. Juliette must fight the government's bribing, and find out how to protect others from her lethal touch.
This book was what I like to call: a 50-50 book. This means that there were equal parts that I liked, to disliked. I was torn. I started off really loving the book. I was immediately caught on to the plot pretty easily, it was very easy to follow. Mafi also wrote the characters beautifully. They way she described her characters, was wonderfully thought out. I could really picture in my head what they looked/acted like. There were a lot of metaphors in this book. I don't mind metaphors, sometimes they can be annoying, but they didn't really annoy me in this book. However if you REALLY don't like metaphors, I would leave this book on the shelf.
Now to the negatives. The repetition! Juliette does this thing where she repeats every word about 5 times. I understand that Mafi was trying to convey what Juliette was thinking in her mind, but reminding the reader 5 times that: "I'm not insane". "I'm not insane". "They'll find me". "They'll find me". Makes you lose interest. It made it sound like an echo. The book could have been a bit too descriptive too. Describing characters is perfect for me, but describing the detail of rain, is a bit much. I want to know as much info about the characters, not the rain. The book was also written in the sense that Juliette was writing in a journal. Meaning, words in the book were crossed out as if Juliette had written them, then decided she didn't want to say it. It was okay once in a while, but I think that it was overly used.
Overall I rated this book 3 out of 5 because it was a very easy to follow book, but the writing could have been really annoying. I loved the description of characters, but to inanimate objects, not so much. If you're looking for a dystopia with a lot of content: romance, paranormal etc. then I would really recommend it. However I would not recommend this for someone who doesn't like a lot of description.
Have you read this book? What did you think?
Bye For Now!
Emily @ Paperback Princess
This book sounds pretty good, though overuse of words and too much description stinks. Juliette sounds interesting. Can break anything she touches? What about food?!? Or is it just people she can break? Anyway, sounds really cool, though since I don't like overuse of description, I don't think I'll be reading this.
ReplyDeleteJuliette was interesting because she could only break people, however there were other traits that made her my least favourite character, such as the overuse of words. I'm not opossed to a lot of descriptiveness, but this book took it to a maximum. It wasn't that simple of writing.
DeleteI felt the same way! I was totally caught up in the book and plot so I liked that aspect, but the writing killed me in parts. This book could have been around 300 pages probably without all the repetition and crossed out words. Ugh it was annoying!
ReplyDeleteRachel @ A Perfection Called Books
It really could have been shortened a lot! I understand that the author was trying to convey that she was panicked, but it was just too much.
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