Julliete’s Comments (group member since Jun 18, 2024)

Julliete’s comments from the briar_prattles group.

Gwynna wrote: "Julliete wrote: "Gwynna wrote: "I recently published a book, The Last Captain Sails Again, the first book of a trilogy. It's really the only thing I can share at the moment. I've included a link, s..."

None of these points overruled your brilliant writing, these were simply little tweaks that popped out. The piratesque language only made me really focus on how words were being said and what they really meant instead of letting me interpret to a point how the characters acted and said them, making them slightly harder to relate to or imagine as real, but this was mainly in the prologue and since it is a book about pirates it probably works overall. I liked your metaphors, only sometimes certain elements were described too much, i found, as soon as i grasped and imagined the metaphor for a thing the same thing would be described with different description. It just meant that certain brilliant metaphors or words weren't as valued as they should have been because there were so many. This is simply what i thought but these points do not detract from the amazing book itself. :)

Gwynna wrote: "I recently published a book, The Last Captain Sails Again, the first book of a trilogy. It's really the only thing I can share at the moment. I've included a link, so you can read the sample throug..."

I read the sample and during the prologue i was wondering how i felt about the different more piratesque language and whether i liked it or not but i couldn't stop reading so it seems to work well actually. Further, Alymer wonders whether it's worth coming back even to see his parents/family and now im really curious to see whether he's going to be a character that the readers will relate to or whether they won't because of his solidarity - either way it really hooks you! I'm not sure i like the further extended descriptive metaphors but that's more my reading preference. However, I really like the idea of the book, it has to slowly reveal to the readers the current conflict but also the war before and the characters are animals! (Not sure if they ALL are but the main character appears to be.)
This genuinely looks like an awesome book and it's very impressive you were able to finish one, you should be really proud (It's really cool that your brother did the awesome cover too!)
📖🙌

So this discussion is a place where we can all post our writings just to get it out there or get some helpful critique. Poems, paragraphs short stories etc. are all welcome 😉😀

*Review (kinda)*

Tahereh Mafi begins by having Juliette describe her cell and she tells us that through her window 'the sky falls down everyday', 'the sun drops into the ocean' and that the only things the leaves provide for her are 'false promises of flight.'
The first time i read these series i was either too young or too enraptured by the plot to realise the words jumping right at me. Mafi has written a masterpiece and no one seems to notice.

It's as though the paper would like to wrap itself around your limbs and rot inside your bones, just so that someone may finally be able to understand what Juliette is so desperately trying to communicate. One of my favourite quotes is as follows: 'His lips are spelling secrets and my ears are spilling ink, staining my skin with his stories.' I'm sure i'll prattle in further posts in regard to how deeply i felt these words and how creative and stupendous all this language is but now i want to share these emotions that this book has boiled up inside me.

I deeply associate myself with Juliette and unashamedly do so - another sign of a brilliant book is that it has the power to attract and entice all who come near. A story of a girl so broken, so unwanted by the world, a story in which she cannot touch anyone as she may harm them and receive only hate is one i doubt many are not encumbered by in their everyday life.

Juliette is trapped in an asylum - one in which she could have easily escaped if she only tried - and desperately tries to prove she is harmless, kind and only in want of a friend - she fails.

She believes that she is a monster and there are days where she does not realise whether she is alive or dead; she continues to live like this, not speaking a word in 264 days and does not do anything to help herself.

This i believe many can relate to, atleast, i know i can. I used to be open, unabashed, unafraid of what others thought of me; i only wanted to be wherever i found myself and i wanted to feel everything deeply. Time changed that. Time always does. Sometimes you find yourself a little too open a little too loud you do not realise the soul-wrenching position you've placed yourself in; people telling you to be quiet or others being praised for the very same things that are simply expected of you will make one encroach in on oneself. You learn to be so quiet, so that you are no longer shushed and you abandon the rest of yourself that seeks interaction and communication and validation so that it no longer hurts when you don't receive it. I am, however, ashamed to admit that, like Juliette, 'i have no spur to prick the sides of my intent' and simply be who i feel like and do what i feel like, before thinking about how others will perceive me; i do not help myself - it is something that i am actively attempting to change.

Just like Juliette i read whatever i can get my hands on because here you cannot be hurt, you can observe and live without the characters of your fantasies hurting you; it offers you the wonders of true heartfelt emotions. A book has a true and definite end. There is no way that things could be different because it is there in ink. The book stains your skin with it's secrets and it allows you to laugh and cry and scream in it's presence without judgement - truly it welcomes you and makes you feel more welcome than anyone possibly could.

Juliette wonders abouts raindrops:
'They're always falling down, forgetting their parachutes as they tumble out of the sky toward an uncertain end. Its like someone is emptying their pockets over the earth and doesn't seem to care where the contents fall.'

There is always a reason for everything in books, always - from the ring on Warner's pinky to his IGNITE tattoo to Juliette's frequent reminders of her 'non-existent' parents: everything means something.

Life is not like this.

Life abandons us in the middle of a field with nothing but a compass. It waits, hoping we don't eat the wrong mushroom: hoping we find our way home: presuming we even know how to read a compass at all: assuming we know which way is home: that anyone has taught us how to walk at all.

Nothing is definite. There are no signs, no 100% guarantees, no rules, nothing to guide us. There are no situations as exciting or enticing or devastating as the re-establishment and a plan to take over the world. I, for one, have not encountered a present that has allowed me to take the reins and become involved utterly.

Simply imagine, you kill anyone you touch, you have this immense superpower that means you can quite literally split the earth, and has meant you have been locked into an asylum for 264 days - then you are visited by a person who couldn't be more interested in you, is unafraid of you, and believes every word you say, trusting every intention to be good.

You escape with them only to realise that there is another like them with an even stronger passion for you because they believe you are amazing - otherworldly.

Then you discover an innumerable number of people exactly like you, misunderstood, wanting for connection and powerful enough to take life by the reins.

Suddenly, disaster strikes and you are filled with an emotion so strong it calls your heart home and you are not tied to anyone or anything and can fully immerse yourself into this next adventure - you have only got yourself to lose and the reminder of nothing to turn back to, pushing you on.

Juliette's plight is a horrific one, i do agree.

But one i would like as my own.

I would not want it if it meant i had to abandon this life, but i imagine i would feel much more alive than i do now.

And that's what we all want in the end isn't it?

We simply want to feel alive; we simply want to know what it is to burn with passion: to sizzle with hate: to know what it is to cry for joy.

I do not simply mean emotions such as those we feel when we receive a new puppy and the dam behind our eyes becomes relieved because the burden it bears may now be less. Those tears are simply tears we shed because we want to feel. We must utilise every mundane experience to our advantage and mould them into tools that may synthesise the greatest amount of emotion we can summon. In this world we must squeeze and grind every emotion we can out of every mundane experience, so as to not forget what it is to feel alive.

Our souls remember with what fire they were made and know that to feel we must suffer: we either suffer because of the scars we gain breaking down our overly reinforced boundaries so that we may feel it all, or we suffer as we suffocate because the thoughts that should be sound are filing down our throats.

Our complacency is what kills us - what almost (and did for a minute) kill Juliette - not our endless push to discover and be boisterous and loud and unabashed.

How could anyone not relate to the characters in Shatter Me who feel. so. much? Who have a brilliant author writing their story with such expressive arrangements of the English lexicon?

I am a God-fearing woman but even he has not come to me or offered up a sign that i can interpret - what is it all for? What am i doing? What should i do?

There are no guarantees to anything, especially when even the character i most relate to has it better off. At least she is capable of something in her world and she has an obvious importance to those around her, an obvious successful end.

I simply want to communicate - we all reach and reach and reach and only those lucky enough to realise that the reach should not have to be that far find escape. And if i cannot communicate then i would like to create; perhaps create something that will reach a person who would have wished to communicate with me. Then, at least, my hope may find what i could not.

Well, this has not been as closely tailored a book review as i intended it to be but i implore all of you who have reached it this far to pick up this book - you will not be disappointed. This book has elicited such strong feelings and outcomes about life (although at first all it was, was a realm i would've done anything to enter and a story i could not stop reading) and i simply wish to reach another who perhaps holds an inkling of what i was hopefully able to express here.

Do you guys think that Adams backlash was kinda outta character? You know, just to make room for Warner to make the transition easier? Or do you think that Juliettes and Adam's break up was destined ???