dystopian – Christy Grace Scarlet Pen

Shatter Me | Why This Dystopian Romance Might Hook Readers Immediately

One touch is all it takes. One touch, and Juliette Ferrars can leave a fully grown man gasping for air. One touch, and she can kill. No one knows why Juliette has such incredible power. It feels like a curse, a burden that one person alone could never bear. But The Reestablishment sees it as a gift, sees her as an opportunity. An opportunity for a deadly weapon.

Juliette has never fought for herself before. But when she’s reunited with the one person who ever cared about her, she finds a strength she never knew she had.

My Review

I kept going back and forth on liking, hating, and tolerating this book.

The writing, I found to be sometimes nice, and other times more like drivel (eg talking about dying 5 times in one second… ugh). Often, it across as a too flowery, but I did enjoy The cross out of a “real” or raw thought followed by the one that the character thinks should be.

The story was very slow to start, and I wished it would have jumped in a few chapters earlier. Then, the story took a very different “beauty and the beast” vibe, before finally doing a sharp turn to superheroes. It was disorienting to say the least.

I know some spoilers and just CANNOT understand how we get from this book, to the final one….. I almost don’t want to know, and I’m hoping if I read any more, it won’t be a toxic relationship that we are supposed to somehow root for. I never do.

Content: violence, imprisonment, child abuse

Anomaly by Krista McGee: The Idea That Was Better Than the Execution

Estimated Reading Time: 4min

If you mix Divergent with Whisper (Lynette Noni) and Uglies (Scott Westerfield) you might come up with something close to describing this book – if they were written as Christian books. Let’s take a look at Anomaly by Krista McGee.

Anomaly

Decades before Thalli’s birth, the world was decimated by a nuclear war. But life continued deep underground, thanks to a handful of scientists known as The Ten. There they created genetically engineered human beings who are free of emotions in the hope that war won’t threaten the world again.

Thalli is an anomaly, born with the ability to feel emotions and a sense of curiosity she can barely contain. She has survived so far by hiding her differences. But then her secret is discovered when she’s overwhelmed by the emotion of an ancient piece of music.

The Ten quickly schedule her annihilation, but her childhood friend, Berk–a scientist being groomed by The Ten–convinces them to postpone her death and study her instead. While in the Scientists’ Pod, Thalli and Berk form a dangerous alliance, one strictly forbidden by the constant surveillance.

Grab the book Here

Content Warnings

Graphic: confinement, Medical Trauma
Moderate: Genocide, Gaslighting, Murder

My Review

Create a world that is full of atheists that are genetically modifying people and don’t allow any sort of emotions (or even a little case of the sniffles) and thrown in capital punishment, except the ‘punishment’ is only because they don’t like or trust you… yeah, that was pretty much this world.
Thalli was a character we got to explore this with as she more and more allowed herself to feel. Feeling is dangerous, and can lead to problems… so that can’t be allowed. While I understand that idea, and where that fed into the plot and setup of this dystopian world and book, I don’t know if it quite landed for me. It was well written, and the characters made sense, but there was just something about it all that felt…. flat. It wasn’t bad, but it wasn’t amazing.The Christian themes and content was pretty obvious and not afraid to hide. While it mostly felt pretty smooth, some of it (especially the ‘come to Jesus moment/s) felt a little much. I feel that way in most books that are a ‘convert to Christianity’ type of moment though – it’s hard to write that on page when it is such an emotional and spiritual process (go figure).
I found that for some of the story things moved slowly, and I was bored. I wonder if as the series continues, it would feel like a better pace now that we aren’t slowly discovering the world around you is different than you thought and/or you are constantly on a razors edge of being killed.

Would I Recommend This Book?

If you like Christian fiction, and don’t mind some pretty obvious messaging, and you’re a teenager… yes. I would. While I was definitely not the target audience for this one, I do see how many may enjoy this story and mystery to continue the series. It’s a 3 book commitment, but I would say yes to recommending this book.

Similar Books You Might Like

If you are thinking what kind of books would have similar feel, themes or content, here is a list that you can consider:

Divergent (Veronica Roth)
Whisper (Lynette Noni)
Uglies (Scott Westerfield)
A Time To Die (Nadine Brandes)

See You in the Adventures!
Christy Grace