…on Unravel Me by Tahereh Mafi

Posted January 9, 2013 by Asheley in Uncategorized / 15 Comments

Unravel Me by Tahereh Mafi
Series: Shatter Me #2

Published by HarperCollins
Publish Date: February 5, 2012
465 Pages
Source: Borrowed from Lauren from
Love is not a triangle. Thanks, friend!

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.
 -(summary excerpt from Goodreads)

Unravel Me by Tahereh Mafi


My Thoughts:  I read Shatter Me for the first time back in November 2011. I had a very high opinion of it and wrote a gushing review here on my blog. It’s so interesting to go back and read that little blog post because I ended up predicting some things that actually turned out to be true, and I didn’t realize it until just now. (My first review of Shatter Me can be found HERE.)

**You may not want to read any further if you have not yet read Shatter Me –
Stop now! You’ve been spoiler-warned!
**


1. 
The Set-Up. Juliette, Adam, and the others are at the Omega Point living among people that have powers like Juliette’s. Juliette spends her days strengthening her skills and has come to realize that she has far greater power than anyone could have imagined.

Omega Point is the central point for the underground resistance movement that opposes The Reestablishment. They are preparing for a fight – there is civil unrest and it is palpable among the citizens. People are hungry and restless, and they’re tired of being mistreated. It is widely known that The Reestablishment is on the lookout for Juliette since her escape, and they’re willing to use or lose anyone or anything to get her back. 

2. Characters. Juliette, Adam, and Warner are back as main players – as well as Kenji, also from Shatter Me. Along with these primary characters, there is a large cast of secondaries, each with identifying skills, powers, or characteristics that make them special – you either love them or you hate them for a particular reason, it seems. They’re all great additions to the story.

I feel like Juliette’s character was a little bit weaker in this book than she was in Shatter Me. After the ending that she gave in the first book, I wanted her to keep up her butt-kicking awesomeness – if anything, I wanted her to improve on that. She didn’t, really. At times, she was a little bit needy and whiny and extremely impulse, which could be terribly dangerous for everyone around her and actually was on more than one occasion. This weakness in her character could be considered understandable given her circumstances, but really Juliette – YOUR TOUCH IS POWER, right? Get over yourself a little bit! I do fully expect with the way this book ended (!!!) that Juliette will rock our socks off in the final book of the trilogy. I’m expecting big things from our heroine!

3. The Romance. If you’ve read Shatter Me, you know that Juliette and Adam had a nice little romance-thing going on. In this book, there is a huge love triangle. It’s the love triangle of love triangles! I don’t mind triangles when they’re well-written, and to be honest – while this one tore my heart out and ripped it to ever-living shreds – it was written really well. I shake my fist at you, Tahereh Mafi. Doggone it. 

4.
The End. I. LOVED. IT. And I cannot wait to read the next book. It simply cannot come soon enough. I have extremely high hopes, which is terrifying and exhilarating all at the same time. The end of Unravel Me is in a super-great place to take off running at a fast pace with lots of action, and I expect some big answers to my really big questions. It’s gonna be great, I just know it. 

********************************************************

It’s super hard for me to write about this book without giving plot information away because I feel so strongly about everything that happened in this book. Not that I feel negatively about it, but I just think this book is so great. Unravel Me made my heart swell, and it also broke my heart. It made me gasp! and it made me swoon. It made me nearly cry sometimes, and other times it made me close the pages in overwhelming shock, shoving it away from me as far as I could reach. I went hours and sometimes days without picking it up again after certain plot points were revealed or discussed because of the intensity of whatever that particular situation was or because of the OMG!! value of the new information. This book is amazing. 

Starting the book, I thought I knew where my heart was – and by that, I mean that I believed that Adam was good and Warner was bad and that was all, period. But when I read the novella Destroy Me, from Warner’s point-of-view (including his backstory), things began to muddy a little bit for me. Warner suddenly had reasons for being the evil dude that he had always been, and his reasons were – ugh – pretty understandable. Reading Unravel Me only served to confuse me more. Tahereh Mafi has an ability to write this villain so that I’m not so sure he’s the villain anymore – there are only a select few writers that can get inside my mind like that – and while I respect the heck out of her for it, it frustrates me to no end. My black-and-white areas were very gray for a chunk of this book, and I wasn’t sure which way was Adam or Warner up or down. (Like it or not, friends, this makes for an excellent villain and as much as it makes me squirm, I LOVE reading these stories.)

This second book was no disappointment to me. I have no idea where Tahereh Mafi is going to go from here. I’ve spent a ridiculous amount of time coming up with theories about where this series is headed (it’s true, you guys wouldn’t believe the number of emails and tweets I’ve sent out and the theories I have swimming around in my head). I’ve had THE BEST time discussing this book with my reading friends. Unravel Me challenged me as a reader. It was the source of a ton of excitement and fun for me. I am thrilled for the rest of the world to experience it and love it too.

I recommend Unravel Me for people that have read/loved Shatter Me and people that love YA sci-fi/dystopian stories that contain a fair amount of romance. I HIGHLY recommend you read Destroy Me before you read Unravel Me. Take this seriously, everybody! I’m very curious about what everyone else thinks of this one – not whether your a fan of Adam or Warner – but genuinely what the world thinks of this book. I think it is an amazing middle book for this series, and it has made this series solid among my favorites. 

(You can read my thoughts on Destroy Me HERE.)

********************************************************


Unravel Me will appeal to fans of:

YA Sci-Fi/Dystopian
Tahereh Mafi/Shatter Me
Romance: Love triangle, bigtime!
And the romance is steamier than in Shatter Me.
Fantastic secondary characterization

Unravel Me by Tahereh Mafi 
will be available for purchase on February 5, 2013.

************************************************


Have you read any of this series yet?
What do you think about it?

I HIGHLY recommend you purchase & download
Destroy Me before you read Unravel Me!

Asheley

About Asheley

Asheley is a Southern girl. She loves Carolina blue skies, Ben & Jerry's ice cream, and NC craft beer. She loves all things history but prefers books over everything.

You can find her somewhere in North Carolina, daydreaming about the ocean.

Find Asheley on Litsy @intothehallofbooks!

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15 responses to “…on Unravel Me by Tahereh Mafi

  1. Woo Hoo! I've been waiting to read this review, Asheley! Well. You know how I feel about ALL OF IT. But I really love what you said about Mafi having the ability to write the villain in a way that makes you wonder if he is really a villain after all. YES. I know that creating an anti-hero is nothing new, but WOW, Mafi really excels at it!

    And I am so envious of you readers that can stop, slow down, even walk away, from a book like this one to reflect and savor. Because I absolutely ZOOMED through Unravel Me, flipping pages like a madwoman, desperate to find out what the heck was going to happen. I cannot wait for the release so I can get my own copy and do a slower re-read. Plus you know I am dying to re-live some of those Warner scenes;)

    I had so much fun talking about this book and coming up with theories with you and Lauren! I cannot wait to see how it all pans out in book #3!

    • My favorite villains EVER are the ones that make me question them. They're smooth-talkers and I usually can't stand them, but still they completely make me forget what they are for little snippets of time here and there throughout the book or series. Where I NEVER forgot in Shatter Me, Destroy Me and Unravel Me have proven that I have to stay on my toes with this author. She's crafty!

      Even as slow as I read Unravel Me, I feel like I read it a little quickly. I need to re-read it to remember so many things, but maybe I feel this way because we've spent so much time talking about it and breaking it down? After I finish my Shatter Me re-read (probably tonight or early tomorrow) I definitely to take a step back from it. 🙂

  2. Ems

    I stopped reading this post at the spoiler alert because I HAVEN'T READ SHATTER ME YET. I know, I know! It's next on my list, but I'm making myself finish what I'm currently reading before I pick up a new one. I'm SO excited for it!! (and have preordered Unravel Me)

    • Shatter Me is really good. I read it straight thru in one sitting during a readathon the first time I read it, and now I'm re-reading it, and it has taken me about three weeks (I think). I started it after I finished Unravel Me, and I think this series just gets better and better the more time I spend with it. There is so much talent in these pages. I can't wait to see what you think. 🙂

  3. Great review! I was lukewarm with Shatter Me and loved Destroy Me. I planned on reading Unravel Me since I've already read the other two, but I wasn't totally excited for it or anything. Now you have me excited. I WANT TO READ ABOUT THIS LOVE TRIANGLE. Mafi's romance scenes are my favoriteeee and it sounds like she doesn't disappoint in Unravel Me!

  4. YES to all this. I felt the exact same way about Juliette, but I have high hopes for her in book 3. And we're on the same page about the sheer quantity of thoughts and predictions going on in hour heads about this series. I will agree that I did NOT foresee where much of this story was going and all the crazy revelations, but that does make it more exciting.

    Also, I am a huge fan of authors who can completely change my mind about a character – I can thinking two other series that have done it astoundingly well – and Warner certainly challenged me. BUT you know how I feel about those triangles, and I wish the choice didn't look so tough. Still I'm sticking to ADAM like glue and believing he'll come out on TOP.

    • Juliette is going to come out in full force, rocking and rolling. I have faith in her. (She better not let me down or I'm gonna crawl into that book and slap her, for several things.)

      This book challenged me as much as any book I've ever read, I think. As painful as this triangle is, you have to admit that it is brilliant in terms of the writing and building of this series and story arc, and I have to give credit to Tahereh Mafi for a job well done. She's certainly created no slump with her series.

      And like we talked about earlier today, I'm very eager to hear what Unravel Me sounds like in audiobook format, although I think I need to distance myself from these characters for a little while before I dive back in. I've spent a lot of time with them lately. 🙂

  5. I legit have anxiety about reading this book. I love Adam SO MUCH and never considered Warner a love interest SO WHAT THE HECK is going to happen in this book and in the series as a whole? AHHHH! I just cannot take it. Warner is supposed to be the villain. Bad. But now everyone is jumping on his team and I can't take it. EEEEKKKK!!

    So, I have no real thoughts to contribute to this review because I still haven't read the book, but I'm sure I'll be emailing you when I actually do.

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