Harper, $9.99, ISBN 978-0-06-208550-4
Fantasy, 2012 (Reissue)
I pick up Tahereh Mafi’s runaway success of a debut effort, Shatter Me, and suddenly, my nose begins to itch like it’s made of air I really want to be a penguin floating like a castle made of cloudy cotton candy.
Juliette is a teenage girl.
17.
Locked up.
Penguins are cool.
Penguins are cool.
She has powers. Her touch is deadly. I bet if Rogue is a bird instead of an X-Man, she’s be a penguin.
Deadly.
Touch.
Deadly.
Touch!
Deadly!
Penguins are so cool.
Dead!
She can’t touch anyone!
Touched her mother. Deadly!
17.
16.
15.
Penguins.
Locked by the Reestablishment, in this book the door slowly opens. But she is now reluctant to leave her new cell mate, Adam, because he’s really hot and he’s the first guy she has ever opened her mouth – locked for 26,431,976 seconds, finally, to be able to open her lips and say, I wonder whether Adam ever wanted to shag a penguin “I really want to have sex with Adam, but in a totally intellectual way full of struck-out sentences, fragmented phrases, and far-out use of digits, because 2 looks so much cooler than two, especially when I start counting for no reason. Like this.
“3.
“2.
“1.
Mommy, can I have a penguin? My parents hate me. I hate them too. I’m too emo to hate anyone because I’m busy wallowing in my misery. Penguins!”
Anyway, by page 160, my nose is really itching. So I raise my
2nd finger Will it look like a penguin if I dip it in black paint?
Dig. Digging is such a weird thing to do when I’m all emo and sad just because. I can relate. To Juliette.
546,222.
Digits are cool.
My 3rd digit is cool.
When I sniff, my nostrils expand by 2 millimeters.
Poor Juliette. It’s tough being a girl who has super special powers and being wanted by everyone. She’s not happy. I’m not happy. But I sound more educated than any Adele song you can think of.
Where was I? Oh yes, digging my nose. Ooh, my booger looks like a penguin.
Will Juliette be happy? Yummy.
Will that evil guy, deliberately written to be the sexy counterpart to the blanket-stealing penguin Adam, become the Gambit to Rogue’s Iceman
PENGUIN PENGUIN PENGUIN PENGUIN PENGUIN PENGUIN
PENGUIN PENGUIN PENGUIN PENGUIN PENGUIN PENGUIN
PENGUIN PENGUIN PENGUIN PENGUIN PENGUIN PENGUIN
PENGUIN PENGUIN PENGUIN PENGUIN PENGUIN PENGUIN
PENGUIN PENGUIN PENGUIN PENGUIN PENGUIN PENGUIN
PENGUIN PENGUIN PENGUIN PENGUIN PENGUIN PENGUIN
338 pages.
26 boogers.
If I keep writing like this, I’m so getting a Pulitzer Prize for the best Mary Sue Young Adult book of all books. Where the hell is my book deal?
The sun and the moon have merged and the earth is upside down. I feel like I can be exactly who I want to be in his arms.
PENGUINS! WE ARE FINALLY PENGUINS! WE’RE FLYING!
The penguins are at war.
Damn.
With such hideously gimmicky narrative, reading this book is like eating pieces of broken glass and downing them with concentrated hydrochloric acid. SHUT UP! I AM AN INTELLECTUAL PENGUIN WHO COULD TOTALLY SCHOOL YOU & YOU ARE SO JEALOUS BECAUSE MY TRIPHTHONGS ARE BIGGER THAN YOURS! This slow-moving story of an emo Mary Sue discovering that she is the most important and special waif in the galaxy is not worth the agony of having to wade through another round of such distracting pointless gimmicks. Best book ever to capture what it feels like to read a book under the influence. Bye, bye, Juliette. This book is certainly not written under the influence, I’m sure. It just feels like it. Is this what they call “method authoring”? Go choke on a penguin for all I care.
