Imagine me
master of my own universe
I am everything I ever dreamed of
Well. This is it. The final instalment. The end of an era. I think it’s probably wise to tell you my relationship with the Shatter Me series by Tareheh Mafi before I go into the review for this; as it made this reading all the more poignant. This is a v quick review because, I’ll be honest, I don’t want to make this too spoiler-heavy nor do I have that much to actually say about it.
I put off starting Shatter Me and the subsequent books for a long, long time. I think I fell victim to the negative Goodreads reviews and didn’t want to put myself through reading it. But then I read it and wished I had picked it up sooner. To fully appreciate Imagine Me, please PLEASE read the other books in this series beforehand. They all feed into each other; they are all necessary to get this as a final piece of written work for Juliette; Warner; Kenji and so on. I was sad to end my time with these characters; and was equally as sad and disappointed with this final instalment. (Eek! Controversial).
I think Imagine Me was always going to struggle to deliver the same way, emotionally, as the other books. Such a momentum had been built in the run up to this with the events of Ignite Me and Defy Me, that I do appreciate that it would have been tricky to keep the interest peaked. But it definitely felt like this was the nicey-nice round-off that Juliette and Warner deserved; but as readers – did we NEED it?!
Warner was virtually non-existent in this book. Dealing with the loss of Juliette, Warner slips into a depressive state and is the nasty piece of work he was depicted as in the first couple books. He was having a hard time. Juliette was also present in this but only ever-so-slightly more than Warner, having been kidnapped and basically altered scientifically to do dirty work for her enemies.
Kenji was the definite star of the show here – and the majority of the book was from his perspective. He came into his own and I was sad when the book finished, because I felt like in all the other books we had been a bit cheated of Kenji and he didn’t have enough pages-time.
All in all, I will give Imagine Me 4 out of 5 stars, but I think at least one of those is just for nostalgic value and the emotions you feel when you realise you have officially closed the door on a set of characters that you have come to love. So it’s more likely a 3 star book. When the ending came, I was left feeling a bit – “That was it?!” It felt incredibly rushed and sort of as if not that much actually happened throughout the novel?
Warner and Juliette, as always, were pretty cutesy. But I wanted more PASSION.
Emmaline’s storyline made me cry.
Kenji is king.
Will definitely re-read this and wallow in Shatter Me memories though.
What did you lovely lot think?
A xo
belle in pages 