Ranking and Reviewing the Shatter Me Series by Tahereh Mafi
So, my rankings for this series are literally all over the place. I’m looking at my Goodreads and how I reviewed each one, and this will honestly be the most uneven ranking I’ve ever done. Uneven as in middle novels are better than beginning/ending novels. There may be a few spoilers throughout this post, so be careful if you haven’t finished the series. I’m going to try my best to keep spoilers out, but you’ve been warned! So, check out my full ranking and short reviews (with full reviews linked) of the Shatter Me series by Tahereh Mafi below!
Before I jump in, I want to take a second to write out the reading order for you guys of the whole Shatter Me series. I feel like with all the novellas and novels, it gets pretty confusing (and I had to look it up several times to make sure I was reading them in the correct order). Starting with Shatter Me, the correct reading order for the series is bulleted below. I’ve also gone ahead and noted which ones are novellas (and, therefore, not super necessary for the series even though I went ahead and read them all).
- Shatter Me
- Destroy Me (Warner’s Novella)
- Unravel Me
- Fracture Me (Adam’s Novella)
- Ignite Me
- Restore Me
- Shadow Me (Kenji’s Novella)
- Defy Me
- Reveal Me (Kenji’s Novella)
- Imagine Me
- Believe Me (Kind of an epilogue novella – highly recommend)
#11 - Fracture Me
This one was SO easy to rank and easily my least favorite. Fracture Me takes place right after Unravel Me from Adam’s point of view. I already didn’t like Adam too much and you honestly didn’t get any additional information in this novella so it was rated 1/5 stars on Goodreads for me. Definitely not action packed, romance packed, or anything. Just more of Adam complaining…
I really really thought that I would love this book. Restore Me and Defy Me built up so much more of the world and characters that I truly thought we were in for an amazing finale. Unfortunately, I really disliked it. It felt rushed with very little plot and another quick ending like Ignite Me was. At least with that one, though, the ending gave you a sense of satisfaction. I knew as soon as I started the ranking post that this one would be super low.
#9 - Shatter Me
I feel like I’m going to get a LOT of hate for this, but I’m going to be honest, I really didn’t enjoy the first one as much as I thought I would. I felt like the writing was just as beautiful as everyone said it would be, but nothing else in the story was developed. I loved the romance and the characters (Warner will forever be my favorite even in this one). But the problem I had was that SO MUCH went into beautiful writing and romance that there was hardly anything left for an actual plot or world building. Please don’t burn me at the stake!!
#8 - Ignite Me
Y’all, I really feel like I’m shunning everyone’s favorite novels in this series… Like, okay, this book was great and all, but everything was so rushed. I really feel like Tahereh Mafi doesn’t know how to build up to a decent conclusion. Warner and Juliette are everything and, of course, Kenji is fun, too, but seriously, WHERE IS THE FREAKING WORLD BUILDING? The Reestablishment can’t just be Anderson, Warner, and Juliette. And then it takes all of, what, twenty pages for everything to end? Yeah, no thanks.
#7 - Shadow Me
So, these next few novellas really aren’t bad at all, but because of the nature of novellas, they don’t rank any higher than this. I actually really enjoyed this novella from Kenji’s point of view. He is fun and lighthearted and this one actually gave you decent information that leads into the next novel (which most of the novellas don’t). It’s just a novella without much substance soooo it logically can’t rank higher for me than the novels I liked the best.
#6 - Reveal Me
Kenji is a fan favorite, so it stands to reason that his novellas rank above the books that I really didn’t enjoy. With this one, you get a little romance between Kenji and another character (you’ll know who I’m talking about if you’ve read the series). You also get a cliffhanger ending that leads directly into the final novel of the series. It was a decent read and pretty entertaining overall.
#5 - Destroy Me
Alrightttt, so I ranked this one higher than Kenji’s novellas because I seriously love Warner. I feel like he’s so misunderstood and this novella happens directly after the events of Shatter Me, so you get to see what is happening in Warner’s mind. I really enjoyed it and it obviously made me like Warner more, so yeah.
#4 - Believe Me
Okay, so this novella is more of the happily ever after that we really wanted after the events of Imagine Me. The only thing that I really didn’t like about this novella is the fact that the first two chapters ish are repeated from the epilogue of Imagine Me. Overall, though, I loved this wrap-up and think it better served the series as a whole. If you’re going to read any of the novellas, I’d recommend this one.
#3 - Unravel Me
I really do think y’all are going to think I’m crazy with the way I’m ranking this series, but here it goes. I really enjoyed Unravel Me. I feel like the whole world of the Reestablishment grew in this novel and you got a more developed sense of the series. I loved the dynamics between the characters and how everything felt a little more like a well-rounded story than just a romance.
#2 - Defy Me
Defy Me followed up Restore Me really well. You get this deeper sense of how bad the Reestablishment really is and how intertwined Juliette is with it as a whole. This one was super tragic and honestly made me so sad at points, but I loved the depth that the series was getting with this novel and Restore Me. Definitely one of my favorites.
#1 - Restore Me
With Restore Me, you can tell that Tahereh Mafi grew SO much as an author in the time between when she “finished” the series vs. when she restarted it. Restore Me takes place right after Ignite Me and the world building grows exponentially in this novel, which is why it was ranked so high for me. This novel takes the number one spot because my main complaint with the whole series is the lack of world building. I finally felt like we were getting somewhere when I read Restore Me, but the finale disappointed me so much. Overall, though, I knew right away that Restore Me would be my favorite.
And there you have it. The Shatter Me series by Tahereh Mafi ranked from my least favorite to favorite. I told you guys this ranking was going to be so weird… but hey, I can’t say this was my favorite series ever so I knew the rankings wouldn’t be that great. Am I the only one who was largely bored but still binging the whole thing??? If I had to give the entire series a rating, I’d definitely rate it 3/5. Highly binge-able, but meh overall.
