She creates characters and then manipulates them into unrealistic actions in order to push them in the direction she wanted, even if it doesn't actually make any sense to do so. Mafi manipulates her readers to try and force them to like Warner. There are plenty of people who suffer abuse and do not lash out and abuse the people they 'love.' His brokenness does not mean that he deserves your forgiveness. His brokenness does not make it okay for him to hurt you. To any girl who meets a boy who was 'broken' by the way someone in his life treated him, who gets treated horribly by this boy - run. And once I've finished annotating all of these books, I will share with you all why that is. He did not deserve or earn her forgiveness.

As if the fact that they love this person makes it okay that they hurt them in these ways.

I am deeply saddened by the fact that 'broken' characters somehow are given the okay to horrifically damage their partners in the name of love. I am baffled by the fact that people find their relationship romantic. And I haven't even truly scratched the surface yet. Warner's obsession with Juliette is terrifying. To have Juliette degrade herself and regress entirely in her character development to the point that she falls for her abuser was disturbing on a number of insane levels. And honestly? If Warner genuinely wanted to develop himself and become a better person, it should have been with someone else. There are some things that are unforgivable. Never in my life had I expected that the author would try to manipulate me into liking the despicable Warner.įorgiveness is important in life, for sure, but I don't think it plays a role here. It's interesting, reading this book again. As of this moment, I have only annotated the first nine and a half chapters. I opened Shatter Me last night and began. I ordered physical copies of the first three books and the short stories that exist in between them. Well, I'd started but eventually lost track due to life and my desire to read books that were more deserving of my attention. It must have been over a year ago now that I said I was going to be rereading the Shatter Me series in order to shed some light on the deeply problematic aspects of abuse romanticism that exists within the series. The Shatter Me series romanticizes abuse click here for an ongoing, in-depth commentary about abuse romanticism in this series and others.

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