Book Review: Escape Me by Tahereh Mafi
The third book in the spin-off series of Shatter Me, Escape Me has a lot of the same vibes as the original series. Check out my full review of Escape Me by Tahereh Mafi below!
Book Information
Rosabelle is refusing to see James. She’s made an agreement with Warren to where James will never know where she is. James is furious, but what he doesn’t know is that Rosabelle is planning to sacrifice herself to kill Klaus. It will take more than Warren blocking his path for James to let Rosabelle go that easy, though. And once James finds out her plan, he will make sure that she never gets hurt by anyone again.
Review | Heidi Dischler
I’m honestly not sure why I continue to be surprised by this…. but this book had NO plot. I absolutely love the romance aspects, but man, Tahereh Mafi doesn’t really do plot that well. I ranked my favorite books from the original series, and the ones that I ranked as being better were the ones that had more worldbuilding and plot. So, what happened in Escape Me, you ask? Nothing. The whole entire time it’s basically James and Rosabelle thinking about each other. Rosabelle is insisting she must stay away from him. James is insisting he must be near her. That’s the gist. It drove me nuts because we got virtually nowhere this whole entire book.
Side note: GOODREADS NOW ALLOWS YOU TO DO HALF STARS AND QUARTER STARS!!!!! LIFE IS SO GOOD RIGHT NOW.
Back to my review ☺️. The romance is honestly probably the only reason this book rated as high as it did. I gave it 3.5 (WHOOP WHOOP FOR HALF STAR RATINGS!!). I may go back later and lower it, but the writing honestly isn’t bad. It’s just the dang plot. You learn nothing about Klaus and the Reestablishments takeover. Rosabelle and James have some moments and it’s well worth the pining. But UGH. All I wanted to know was how they would take down the Reestablishment and we basically got nowhere.
Spoilers ahead.
Okay, so major spoilers ahead. The most important things that happened in this book:
- Juliette had her baby (safely).
- James and Rosabelle have an intense kissing scene (like I said, well worth the pining).
- And… drum roll… Rosabelle’s mental shields are so fractured from being around James that Klaus’ programming gets installed in her brain. Not gonna lie, that was a pretty good cliffhanger. Tahereh Mafi is a queen at cliffhangers. I just wish it wouldn’t have taken 300-odd pages of nothing to get there. I also feel like Warren was way too smart to not know what was going on with Rosabelle, buuuut I guess she never really explained the Klaus situation fully to him, so I’ll forgive him for not figuring it out. James was just dumb trying to stay close to her and her legit screaming every time….
Overall, I did enjoy reading about our favorite characters and getting to see some pretty intense reveals. However, this book was way too long for how much actually happened to further the plot. The cliffhanger was the only big “aha” moment. So, 3.5 stars (not rounded up!!!) for this book.
Source: Personal Copy
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