Defy Me
Tahereh Mafi, 2019
Fantasy Science fictionContemporary fictionRomance
A YA sci-fi romance about a girl whose touch is lethal, the boy who loves her anyway, and the fight to reclaim their own memories. A dramatic, memory-haunted YA romance that moves on longing and hope, with an intimate voice fixed on identity and love.
Feels like longing and hope. About love, identity and memory.
Who it’s for
You may like this if you enjoy YA sci-fi romance built around a dangerous touch, devoted love, and characters trying to piece their memories back together. It sits deep in an ongoing series, so the emotional stakes may land best if you've read the earlier books.
Why read it
It offers a charged, hopeful look at two people fighting for their own memories and a second chance at joy.
A page from the book
The ordinary moment that makes all the fighting worth it.
I want to remember to celebrate more. I want to remember to experience more joy. I want to allow myself to be happy more frequently. I want to remember, forever, this look on Aaron’s face, as he’s bullied into blowing out his birthday candles for the very first time.This is, after all, what we’re fighting for, isn’t it?A second chance at joy. Tahereh Mafi.Tahereh Mafi is married to Ransom Riggs, author of Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children.
Books that feel like this
More by Tahereh Mafi
Destroy Me
Tahereh Mafi, 2012
The Shatter Me series’ coldest character gets a first-person voice: obsessive love, power, and the terror of being seen.
Shatter Me
Tahereh Mafi, 2011
A girl whose touch is lethal is locked away—until a boy from her past appears and her own voice becomes the dangerous thing.
Imagine Me
Tahereh Mafi, 2020
A YA fantasy romance of dangerous powers and obsessive love, told in a voice that keeps breaking into poetry and crossed-out thought.
Where to get it
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Questions readers ask
- Is Defy Me for me?
- You may like this if you enjoy YA sci-fi romance built around a dangerous touch, devoted love, and characters trying to piece their memories back together. It sits deep in an ongoing series, so the emotional stakes may land best if you've read the earlier books.
- What is Defy Me like?
- A dramatic, memory-haunted YA romance that moves on longing and hope, with an intimate voice fixed on identity and love. Feels like longing and hope. About love, identity and memory.
- What should I read after Defy Me?
- If you liked Defy Me, try The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue (V.E. Schwab), The One (Kiera Cass) and The Night We Met (Abby Jimenez).
A taste of the feed
The difference between being remembered and being known.
Last night, she told him hers was Jess. She lied, but only because she can’t say her real name—one of the vicious little details tucked like nettles in the grass. Hidden barbs designed to sting. What is a person, if not the marks they leave behind? She has learned to step between the thorny weeds, but there are some cuts that cannot be avoided—a memory, a photograph, a name.
The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue · V.E. Schwab
What it sounds like when someone wants the ordinary days too.
I want everything with you, America. I want the holidays and the birthdays, the busy season and lazy weekends. I want peanut butter fingertips on my desk. I want inside jokes and fights and everything. I want a life with you.
The One · Kiera Cass
Some love feels less like a shelter than a match.
Maybe this isn’t the kind of love that deserves to exist. Maybe it’s the kind that wars start over. The kind that topples empires and never leaves the world better than it found it.
The Night We Met · Abby Jimenez
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