Also posted on Rally the Readers.

I’m still not sure what I think of between-series novellas overall, having only read one other, Cynthia Hand’s Radiant, prior to reading Destroy Me. I loved Hand’s Unearthly series, and so I purchased Radiant to tide me over as I waited for the release of the final Unearthly book. In the end, though, I didn’t find Radiant to be essential reading. I’d say that I have to be heavily invested in a series and/or one of its characters for these novellas to pique my interest, especially when I have to shell out a few bucks for them (I’m a bit of a cheapskate). When my cousin, a fellow Shatter Me fanatic, informed me that there was a novella written from Warner’s POV, I HAD to have it, no matter what it cost. This is Warner we’re talking about here, people.

I happened to love Warner in Shatter Me, propensity for insanity and all. He was the character who commandeered my attention and never let go of it. And I don’t think he’s going to relinquish it any time soon, either.

Destroy Me picks up immediately after Warner’s been shot by Juliette, and in typical Warner fashion, he loathes looking weak in front of his men. He also can’t quite wrap his head around the fact that Juliette pulled the trigger on him. As Warner recovers from his injury and focuses on finding Juliette—and Adam, whom Warner wants to kill with a ferocity that’s scary even by Warner standards—he reveals an entirely different and surprising side to his character. See, I loved the Warner I met in Shatter Me—arrogant, manipulative, and unhinged—so I can only imagine what reading Destroy Me was like for readers who hated him in Shatter Me. If, like me, you fell in love with Warner just as he was, don’t worry; he doesn’t magically morph into a hero overnight. What Destroy Me does is present him as a complex human being; there are so many facets to Warner than the outward appearance he’s constructed for himself as the Regent of Sector 45. It may be difficult to believe at first, but Warner is capable of feeling human emotions like love and hurt. In Destroy Me, he’s experiencing a lot of the latter.

I admit that it was tougher than usual for me to separate my feelings for a favorite character from my feelings about the book, or in this case, novella, as a whole. The part of me that wanted to rate Destroy Me based on emotion alone said, “Duh. It’s Warner. Five stars!” before I even started reading the Prologue. The more rational part of my brain says that this is an incredibly insightful look into the mind of a character who is otherwise not easy to read. Of course, it’s not as though Warner spills all his secrets here; he still leaves you plenty to speculate about.

And here I was thinking that I was only going to write a mini-review of Destroy Me. Ah, Warner. I do love talking about you.