Romance

Shatter Me

Background

Published in 2011, “Shatter Me” by Tahereh Mafi follows Juliette Ferrars, as she navigates a dystopian world ruled by the oppressive Reestablishment. Imprisoned for accidentally killing someone, Juliette grapples with her guilt and fears while discovering her powers can be both a curse and a weapon. When she’s released to become a tool for the Reestablishment’s leader, she faces emotional and moral dilemmas, alongside a complicated connection with Adam Kent, her guard and former crush.

Shatter Me
Shatter Me

My Thoughts

This book was recommended to me by a teenaged girl of a family I’ve known for years. We were talking about dystopian books and she mentioned this one. She said she loved the book and even her younger sister popped in saying she was enjoying it. I didn’t understand it was a romance at the time. My wife pulled up the cover and said I should have known while showing me the cover with a young woman in a white dress. Makes sense, I only saw the eye you see on this page when I made the reservation.

I’m not fond of romances. I believe this one makes #4 on this blog and I doubt I had read many others throughout my life. This book was no exception. I would class it firmly with the Twilight series. A grossly overpowered female for no particular reason, who everyone thinks is amazingly beautiful, for no particular reason (we don’t know anything other than her hair is long), and who blunders through the story while whining about her anxieties. Also as a special bonus, she falls in love immediately with the male protagonist who, of course, falls in love immediately with her. It’s ok though, they went to school together years before. Irrespective that they had never spoken, they dreamt of meeting one day. Oh, also in line with the Twilight series, there is a good deal of “mature themes” and sexual wording. In short, I don’t think anyone should read it, but I recognize my bias here. This book wasn’t written for my demographic.

Recommendation

I really didn’t like this book.

Outlander

Background

Published in June of 1992, Outlander is the first book in a series of fictional books about Outlanders. People who time travel from one place to another. The first was a nurse from WWII to 16th century Scotland.

Outlander
Outlander

My Thoughts

It certainly had an interesting back story and the author knows how to keep the reader engaged but I didn’t really like it. The main character was a little too much “Mary Sue” for me and I didn’t really like how she handled herself. I was looking for a good series but this just wasn’t it.

Recommendation

Skip it. For this 12 book series, I am one and done.

The Time Traveler’s Wife

Background

Published in 2003 and made into a movie in 2009, The Time Traveler’s Wife is a book about a man who keeps jumping forward and backward in time.

The Time Traveler's Wife
The Time Traveler’s Wife

My Thoughts

The premise was an interesting literary device but that’s really all the good I have to say about the book. The science was ridiculous, the language was foul, and there wasn’t a lot of morality in the characters. There wasn’t much that I could identify with so in short, I didn’t like it.

My wife asked me if I had heard about this book before and I hadn’t so I decided to read it. I had no idea they made a movie until I did the background searching after reading it. Such a sad surprise…

Recommendation

The worst book I’ve read in a while.

The Notebook

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Background

Released in 1996, The Notebook was a hit in the first week of release. Nicholas Sparks had written two other novels previously which were not and still not published. This book was pulled out of a “slush” pile and literary agent Theresa Park offered to represent Sparks.

Since then, it has been made into a major motion picture in 2004 and has even been adapted to a Bollywood film, “Zindagi Tere Naam”.

The Notebook
The Notebook

My Thoughts

The Notebook is the quintessential chick flick. Maybe that’s the case for the book as well. I didn’t care for it. There was a number of times I stopped reading and asked myself, “What?” It makes little to no sense to me. Romance has it’s place and I like the idea of an elderly couple still in love. However, there were a few too many tropes and ridiculous notions for me to enjoy the book.

Recommendation

I didn’t enjoy the book. However, I did enjoy the movie. Perhaps it was because I was holding hands with someone through it. If forced to read the book again, perhaps holding hands with my wife would be the way to do it.