Destroy Me

This is a nice little character study, not just of Warner but of Juliette as well. Why do I feel like I know her better now than I did after the almost 300+ pages of [b:Shatter Me 10429045 Shatter Me (Shatter Me, #1) Tahereh Mafi http://d.gr-assets.com/books/1310649047s/10429045.jpg 15333458]? Warner's perspective is skewed, obviously, both by his selfish desire to posses her as well as his own self-hatred that views her as an antagonist, a conqueror of his little tar-black soul. Yet his connection to her, the empathy that he feels towards her, seems genuine. This could go somewhere interesting.In my review of Shatter Me I talked a little bit about how the book banks on the fetishization of masculine dominance (and I wrote even more about it here). The fun thing about this is that it flips it a little bit. Sure, Warner still has his aggressive habits, but his inner working speak of a different kind of desire. The one that's in the title. I like reading about men who want to be destroyed by women. Also, it gives an opportunity to see Juliette as she truly could be - not as a trembling cookie-cutter protagonist, but as fucking Kali. She is exactly the kind of goddess that someone as utterly damaged as Warner would worship. The prose is much more controlled here as well, easier to read and much more evocative. Mafi's got the goods. Now hopefully she puts them to good use.

This booklet is supposed to give us an insight into the cruel, psychopathic mind of military kid extraordinaire, Warner.

We discover that he was most likely abused as a child by his stone cold father and that's why he thinks he has this connection with Juliette, that only she can understand him. It also seems that, when he made that move on Juliette, when he kissed her, he was under the impression that she has feelings for him and he discovered with shock (when she shot him) that she was in fact disgusted by him. No s**t, Sherlock!

He thinks he loves her after observing her for just two weeks or so. This is so utterly ridiculous. So at least we know that he's not really that evil, he's just completely delusional.

We also find out the he might be suffering with a form of OCD, just like Juliette, and he got obsessed with her because he thinks that they should be together due to the similarities they share and he is heart broken when he realizes she's involved with Adam. Ladies and gentlemen, meet nut-job number three.

We're also led to think that he's not actually a monster, that he's actually capable of emotion and he cares about the well being of the people he rules over. It's also hinted that he is in fact almost just as a victim of the new regime as everybody else and that the horrible things he does, he does them because his father terrorizes him, his father being the leader of The Reestablishment.

These revelations are not surprising to me, I totally saw this coming. I had a feeling from the previous book that there's gonna be a twist and his evil ways will be justified and that we're actually supposed to sympathize with him. To be honest, I'm not buying it. Warner is so disturbed that nothing can fix that. So whether he's evil or not really evil, I don't care. My expectations have been lowered to zero after the first book, but I am determined to go on with the series as most people loved the second book better than the first and I'm curious enough to see how much worse it can get. Because I'm almost 100% sure that the next book will be probably worse, if not just as bad.

The writing was almost just as off-putting as in the first book. I could barely hear the voice of a boy. What I heard was the voice of a whinny little girl. Warner sounded just as dramatic as Juliette which was quite annoying and I wanted to shake him well and tell him “Get over it already”.

Highlights:

I started screaming today.

And those four words hit me harder than the worst kind of physical pain. My chest is rising and falling, my breaths coming in too hard. I have to force myself to keep reading.

My intercom screeches so suddenly that I trip over my own chair and have to catch myself on the wall behind my desk. My hands won't stop shaking; my forehead is beaded with sweat.

God, Juliette, I gasp. And fall to my knees.