(no subject)

[skygiants]

We all know there are a lot of first-person present-tense YA dystopias in the marketplace right now, but here's the thing: I'm pretty sure that Tahereh Mafi has written the ULTIMATE combination of YA dystopia and teenaged id-fic. I am seriously impressed. This woman is pretty much a genius.

Okay, so the heroine of Shatter Me has Rogue-style SUPER DEATH POWERS that mean that she can't touch anyone without accidentally murderinating them, and possibly also super-strength, and so EVERYONE THINKS SHE'S A MONSTEEER, including her parents, including also herself, and she has been hated and abused and downtrodden her entire life and then stuck in an insane asylum! BY THE DYSTOPIC GOVERNMENT.

Enter the hero, who is SUPER HOT and has MYSTERIOUS TATTOOS and is the ONLY PERSON WHO CAN TOUCH HER, for reasons as yet unexplained, and who has been in love with her since he was SEVEN because they were in the SAME ELEMENTARY SCHOOL CLASS and he watched her do LOTS OF NICE THINGS for all the people who were mean to her because of her fatal death powers! Oh, he was also the other class outcast because of his dad being poor and abusive, so they spent SEVEN YEARS in elementary/middle school staring wistfully at each other without speaking and pining from afar and this is the basis of their love. It's amazing. It's the most anime thing I ever heard. I am just. So impressed. What a way to tap directly into a teenager's id-feelings of worthlessness and make it a power fantasy (SUPER DEATH POWERS!) AND a you're-such-a-good-person fantasy AND a romance fantasy all at once.

Oh, and enter also the villain, Warner (which meant I spent the whole book visualizing him as the ex-boyfriend from Legally Blonde.) He is obsessed with our heroine because of her super death powers and wants him to join him in dystopic government superstardom, and of course he is also SUPER HOT. Emerald eyes! In fact everyone in this book is super hot. I was ready to get all indignant, because the only person who had not been described in glowing terms of hotness was the hero's Wacky Comic Relief Friend Kenji, and then Kenji shows up for the first time after his face heals up from a major attack and, oh, he also has got a "spectacular face, a defiant jawline, perfect eyebrows, eyes as pitch-black as his hair," so it's okay, Tahereh Mafi. We're good.

AND THEN KENJI TURNS OUT TO BE PART OF THE SECRET RESISTANCE AND THEY RUN AWAY AND DISCOVER THE SECRET HIDEOUT OF PEOPLE WITH MUTANT SUPERPOWERS AND OUR HEROINE GETS A LOVINGLY-DESCRIBED LYCRA BODYSUIT AND THE HERO IS ALL "YOU LOOK LIKE A SUPERHERO" and the book ends on dramatic PREPARATION TO KICK DYSTOPIA ASS. Amazing. AMAZING.

Oh, and also subtext is narrated with strikeouts, like so -- "in 17 years I've never talked to a boy my own age. Because I'm a monster." -- which is miles above Mercedes Lackey angsty italics. Like, Mercedes Lackey is no longer even in the same LEAGUE.

TAHEREH MAFI HAS THROWN DOWN THE GAUNTLET. Challengers, come if you dare! Am I reading the sequel? YOU BET.

Comments

[brownbetty]

AMAZING.

Also, amazon should totally use this to blurb the book.

[skygiants]

ONLY ALLCAPS CAN DO IT JUSTICE!

[hafl]

That sounds pretty good, though I think I still encountered an angstier thing. Prisoner, after being thrown into the oubliette, continues to work on an escape tunnel that was dug out by successive generations of prisoner through solid rock using only a rusty nail. Then, when he is so close to the outside that he can hear the birds singing when he puts his ear against the rock, the nail finally breaks down after more than hundred years of use. One of the greatest moments in all literature, I think. (He still gets outside after breaking the remaining rock with his bare hands, only to discover that he is on cliff side, few hundred feet above ground.)

[rachelmanija]

What struck me most about this book, actually, was the incredibly over-the-top prose. I recall lots of sentences that went something like, "The lemon curdled sky reminded me of my death powers and made my eyeballs do a triple axel into the swimming pool of death love death that is my longingtolove heart."

[skygiants]

Yes, but is that prisoner a TEENAGE GIRL? I don't think Tahereh Mafi is trying to win an all-weights angst-off here -- I mean, Lymond's got her sewn up -- but for the direct line into teenaged id ...

[skygiants]

HAHAHA YES. I count this too as all part and parcel of the teen-id tapline. Too long have first-person present-tense YA dystopia writers struggled in the sparse prose shadow of the Hunger Games! IT'S TIME TO BREAK FREE.

[lnhammer]

Strikeouts! AWESOMESAUCES WITH CHERRIES ATOP.

---L.

[skygiants]

After reading this I don't understand why nobody's tapped through the potential of strikethrough text in YA novels before. WHOLE NEW VISTAS APPEAR.

[buymeaclue]

WHAT MARVEL IS THIS?

[buymeaclue]

Wait, literal strikeouts. I do not even yes I do.

[nevanna]

Laurie Halse Anderson used strikethroughs in Wintergirls.

[winding_path]

Oh, and enter also the villain, Warner (which meant I spent the whole book visualizing him as the ex-boyfriend from Legally Blonde.)

I kind of cackled. It sounds AMAZING.

[skygiants]

I am both pleased to know that this is a device that someone has taken advantage of, and boggled that it hasn't become a MASSIVE TREND between then and now!

[skygiants]

SADLY it did not end with the heroine teaming up with a lady rival to save the day with fashion knowledge, but alas, not everything can actually be Legally Blonde.

[skygiants]

IT'S BEAUTIFUL

[bookblather]

OH THANK GOD YOU'VE READ THIS I just finished it and was like .... SKYGIANTS WOULD HAVE THE FUNNIEST THINGS TO SAY ABOUT THIS.

Did you ever read the sequel? Is it as hilariously over the top? INQUIRING MINDS WANT TO KNOW.

[skygiants]

I never actually did! But I very much hope someone else has, and posted about it, because inquiring minds do SUPER want to know.

[bookblather]

Well, the Worst Bestsellers (AMAZING podcast btw) did an episode on it and mentioned some of the events from the sequels which did sorta kill my interest in them, alas.