Shatter Me Series Order | How to Read Tahereh Mafi’s Books

The Shatter Me books by Tahereh Mafi are some of my favorite YA novels—but if you’re new to the series, a quick glance at the full list can be confusing. So if you’re wondering, “What’s the proper Shatter Me series order?” you’re in the right place.

Good news: the Shatter Me books in order are simple. Read them in publication order. Mafi wrote them in the exact order you should read them—novellas included.

That means less guesswork.

Hurray!

Jump to:

• Complete Shatter Me Series Order
• Core Books Only
• What is Shatter Me About?
• Shatter Me Books FAQ

Complete Shatter Me Series Order

Here’s the full Shatter Me reading order, including both the original series and the newer continuation. Read straight through in publication order for the clearest experience, since that’s how Tahereh Mafi reveals the characters, relationships, and bigger story.

Shatter Me Series 1: Original Series

This is the original Shatter Me run centered on Juliette’s story. It includes the first six novels and five companion novellas, which were published in the order they’re meant to be read.

1. Shatter Me (2011)
   Destroy Me (Novella) (2012)
2. Unravel Me (2013)
   Fracture Me (Novella) (2013)
3. Ignite Me (2014)
4. Restore Me (2018)
   Shadow Me (Novella) (2019)
5. Defy Me (2019)
   Reveal Me (Novella) (2019)
6. Imagine Me (2020)
   Believe Me (Novella) (2021)

Shatter Me Series 2: The New Republic

This is the newer Shatter Me series set after the events of the original books. It shifts the focus to a new era in the same world, so it works best once you’ve already finished the main Juliette storyline.

1. Watch Me (2025)
2. Release Me (2026)

Can I skip the novellas?

The short answer is, “Yes!” You can skip the novellas. They aren’t necessary at all to understand the main story.

What the novellas do is provide extra insight into the world of Shatter Me. They’re often from a different POV. For instance, Destroy Me, the first novella, is from Warner’s POV.

This allows you to see what Warner is thinking since Shatter Me is told from Juliette’s point of view. It also serves as an interlude between novels since the events of Destroy Me take place after Shatter Me but before Unravel Me.

But nothing learned within the novellas is crucial to the plot of the main series. They’ll only provide extra details that make the novels more impactful.

For that same reason, you also don’t have to read all the novellas either. The novellas are just extra content. They serve as bridges between books with supplemental plot from a specific character’s point of view, so you can cherry pick which character interests you the most.

Rest assured, if you choose to skip them you won’t miss out on the core plot.

Below is a Shatter Me reading order for those of you, like me, who don’t really read novellas.

Shatter Me Series Order: Books Only

If you’re not interested in the interlude novellas, this may be the right Shatter Me series order for you. The series has two main arcs based on when Mafi published the books, so that stopping point is how we’ve divided the books for this reading order.

1. Shatter Me (2011)
2. Unravel Me (2013)
3. Ignite Me (2014)

This ends the original Shatter Me trilogy, but Mafi wrote three more novels 4 years after the completion of the first trilogy.

4. Restore Me (2018)
5. Defy Me (2019)
6. Imagine Me (2020)

But the Shatter Me universe doesn’t end there. In 2025, Mafi continued the story with The New Republic, a new series set in the same world years after the original books.

1. Watch Me (2025)
2. Release Me (2026)

What is the Shatter Me Series About?

Tahereh Mafi’s Shatter Me is a YA dystopian series about Juliette Ferrars, a girl whose touch can kill. After spending years locked away by the government, she’s pulled back into the world when they decide her power might be useful—and that’s when the romance, danger, and bigger stakes all collide.

As you can imagine, having a lethal touch makes relationships complicated, and it’s a constant source of tension throughout the story. Juliette’s also carrying a lot of emotional baggage, and Mafi shows that on the page with the crossed-out lines in Juliette’s narration, like you’re reading her thoughts in real time and watching her second-guess herself.

Some readers find that style annoying at first, but you do get used to it. And honestly, I’ll take it over books completely written in dialect slang.

Shatter Me Books FAQ

What About Unite Me and Find Me?

If you’ve done any bit of searching for the Shatter Me books on Amazon you might have come across the titles Unite Me and Find Me.

Unite Me contains the two novellas Destroy Me and Fracture Me (listed separately in the full Shatter Me series order above). So if you purchase those separately, you don’t need Unite Me. Or you can purchase Unite Me instead of purchasing them separately.

The same can be said of Find Me. It contains both Shadow Me and Reveal Me (also listed separately above), the two later novellas.

Is Shatter Me Spicy?

The Shatter Me series is a YA Science Fiction Romance. So let’s dissect that. First, Romance is an important aspect of the plot and it does contain romantic elements. But it’s also YA, or Young Adult, meaning that it’s meant for ages 13 to 17.

As such, the romance in Shatter Me is all very PG-13. There is no smut or explicitly sexual content.

Shatter Me‘s romance is what is called “Fade to Black”. That means anything spicy occurs off the page and is left to the imagination.

Is the Shatter Me series inappropriate for kids?

For older teens, it usually lands squarely in normal YA territory—dark dystopian themes, violence, and romance.

For younger children, it depends on what you’re comfortable with: the series includes heavy emotional content and increasingly steamy relationship scenes later on, so it can be a miss for middle-school readers unless they’re already reading darker/romance-forward YA and you’re fine with that vibe.

Is Juliette in The New Republic series?

Yes, but The New Republic is not simply more of Juliette’s story. The newer series is set ten years after the fall of the Reestablishment and shifts the main focus to James Anderson and Rosabelle Wolff, while Juliette and Warner remain important figures in the world and its history.

Do I need to read the original Shatter Me books before The New Republic?

Technically, no. Harper’s series page presents Series Two as a place readers can start. Still, the better experience is to read the original series first, because The New Republic builds on the world, relationships, and fallout from the earlier books.

Looking for more books like Shatter Me?

If you want more science fiction authors and reading-order guides like this one, start with my Science Fiction Books in Order index.

• Books in Order (Full Index)
• Hunger Games Books in Order
• Divergent Books in Order
• The Maze Runner Books in Order