How I fell in love with a villain

I read Tahereh Mafi's Shatter Me at the end of last year in almost one sitting. I was thirty pages from the end when we had to go to a New Year’s Eve party. We went, I socialized for an appropriate amount of time, then I snuck (I like this word way better than sneaked) away, and it hit my one-hundred and oneth book for the year just before the ball dropped.

Shatter Me was unlike anything I had ever read – a girl that can kill with just a touch. But it wasn’t necessarily the premise that was so different and captivating. It was Mafi’s writing style. Wow. She certainly knew how to keep a person chained to the couch!

I expected equal awesomeness from her follow-up, Destroy Me. What I didn’t expect was for it to be in Warner, the villain’s, voice. So, because of the unique circumstances, I checked in with My Heart to make sure we were still on the same page.

Me: *knocks on door*

Heart: *opens door, glances around wildly* Yeah?

Me: I just wanted to, uh, make sure we’re good.

Heart: Yeah. We’re good.   She says it in a rush *door starts to close*

Me: *puts hand in doorway; pinched brow tries to convey gravity of situation* He’s a villain. Understand? We hate him. Okay?

Heart: *nods like a druggie trying to convince a cop she’s clean* Course. Sure. Uh-huh.

Me: *suspiciously tries to peer inside*

Heart: *narrows opening; only her head is visible* Well, thanks for stopping by. I really gotta go. You know all the pumping and feeling things, don’t wanna get behind. *slams door in my face*

Me: *shrugs, turns, nods to herself* She gets it. *walks away, oblivious*

Heart: *leans against closed door inside; wipes sweat from brow* I think she’s on to me.

Goodreads Summary

 In Tahereh Mafi’s Shatter Me, Juliette escaped from The Reestablishment by seducing Warner—and then putting a bullet in his shoulder. But as she’ll learn in Destroy Me, Warner is not that easy to get rid of. . .

Back at the base and recovering from his near-fatal wound, Warner must do everything in his power to keep his soldiers in check and suppress any mention of a rebellion in the sector. Still as obsessed with Juliette as ever, his first priority is to find her, bring her back, and dispose of Adam and Kenji, the two traitors who helped her escape. But when Warner’s father, The Supreme Commander of The Reestablishment, arrives to correct his son’s mistakes, it’s clear that he has much different plans for Juliette. Plans Warner simply cannot allow.

Set after Shatter Me and before its forthcoming sequel, Unravel Me, Destroy Me is a novella told from the perspective of Warner, the ruthless leader of Sector 45.

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Destory Me was unlike anything I have ever read. A middle novel in the voice of the villain. The wha? The villain. We’re taught to hate him throughout the first novel. He’s evil. He wants bad things for Julliette, and he wants to do bad things to her. So we thought. Then Mafi takes our preconceived notions by the nostrils and shoves them facedown.

And I gotta say – GENIUS!

Warner is still everything he was, but now we get a look inside his head, and holy crap there’s a LOT we don’t know. What an amazingly rare experience, to be front-row-center to a villain’s inner sanctum. We get glimpses into his past, stomach-churning moments with his monster villain of a father. We see why Warner is the way he is, what made him, what keeps him, his actual plans for Julliette, his true reasons for barging into her life, and his undeniable – and strangely beautiful – feelings for her. We get it all. And Mafi’s writing is just as mesmerizing as I remember, even in another voice.

Maybe some of you have read books like this. I’ll honestly say that I can’t remember. My memory is worse than a flea’s. Take a flea’s brain, cut it into eight equal pie pieces, flick all but one of those pieces away, and you have my memory. If there are other books like this, TELL ME. This is such a cool concept. Now my expectations for the next books are all tangled up. I have no idea who I’m going to favor more, but Destroy Me has definitely leveled the playing field. It’s anyone’s game now.

Destroy Me is a novella, and is out as a digital copy for $2.99. Worth the buy! It’s labeled as book 1.5 and will leave you salivating for the next installment. Thankfully, Unravel Me is due out February 5^th, YAY!

Favorite Lines:

“I, like the rest of the puppets in this world, am entirely subservient to my father’s will. It’s a truth I’m forced to contend with every day: that I’ve never been able to stand up to the man who has his fist clenched around my spine.”

“Empathy is not an emotion I’ve ever known, but now it’s drowning me, pulling me into a world I never knew I could enter. And though I’ve always believed she and I shared many things in common, I did not know how deeply I could feel it. It’s killing me.”

HAPPY PRE-TURKEY DAY, EVERYONE! 

Have a safe and wonderful and food-filled holiday tomorrow :)