Hello! Last Tuesday I
attended Tahereh Mafi’s signing in San Diego, part of her Restore Me
tour. The event took place at Mysterious Galaxy and it was hosted by author
Marie Lu.
I almost didn’t make it,
I had to run two blocks to catch the bus, and thankfully I arrived just on
time, picked up my copy of Shatter Me and sat down. Tahereh and Marie
came out at 7:00 pm.
The event was mostly
Marie asking things to Tahereh and complimenting each other. After a brief
introduction Marie started telling her first impression of Tahereh and how she
discovered Shatter Me in BEA when it was about to be released, and
praised Tahereh’s writing that continuously grows as Tahereh ages, she was 23
when Shatter Me came out in 2011. Marie commented that Shatter Me is a
book that stuck with her because of the peculiar voice of the protagonist,
Juliette, something new and refreshing. Then the questions started.
[I recorded the whole
event, and this below is a brief transcription, I omitted some parts to make a
summary of the whole event.]
Marie Lu [ML]: What was like to return to the Shatter Me
world? You wrote the first three
Tahereh Mafi [TM]: It’s a fair question, the last book came out in
2014, 4 years ago. What happened is that at the time I thought the series was
over, I felt it ended in a very good place, Juliet had grown in a great way and
I was ready to move on. I think it was more that I was ready to move on
artistically and creatively that that the story was over, but in the moment it
felt like a good choice. I wanted to do something else, and I did, I moved into
a completely different direction I wrote middle grade novels for a couple of
years.
ML: Amazing middle grade novels. Furthermore
and Witchwood, which if you guys haven’t read them yet, please do.
TM: And it was really fun, a different point of
view, and a very fantastical magical realism. They’re very different and I had
a lot of fun with that. I fully moved on from the Shatter Me series, and I was
having a conversation with someone about the books one day and they asked me a
question about the characters names, and I couldn’t remember their names, and I
thought I probably should know the answer to that question. So I re-read them
start to finish in like 12 hours because I should know what they’re about, and
I enjoyed them.
ML: Because they’re great.
