Shiver by Maggie Stiefvater

Shiver by Maggie Stiefvater
Scholastic Press (August 1, 2009)
390 pages
$12.23 (Amazon.com, 06/04/09)

Originality: 5
Characters: 5
Writing: 4
Setting: 4.5
Plot: 5
Passion: 5
Overall: 28.5/30 = 95% = A
Cover Bonus: 3

I picked this beauty up at BEA! It is signed by Maggie too.


Here's a quick blurb about the book from Maggie's web site. I don't like giving away too much so the blurb will have to do!

For years, Grace has watched the wolves in the woods behind her house. One yellow-eyed wolf—her wolf—is a chilling presence she can't seem to live without. Meanwhile, Sam has lived two lives: In winter, the frozen woods, the protection of the pack, and the silent company of a fearless girl. In summer, a few precious months of being human... until the cold makes him shift back again.

Now, Grace meets a yellow-eyed boy whose familiarity takes her breath away. It's her wolf. It has to be. But as winter nears, Sam must fight to stay human—or risk losing himself, and Grace, forever.

On with my review......

Originality:
I give it a 5! I've read a lot of werewolf books but not too many teen related stories. I can only think of the Twilight Saga right now.

Characters:
The main character is Grace. She's a 17 year old, independent high schooler who is obsessed with the wolf pack that lives in the woods behind her home during the winter. Specifically the yellow eyed one. She's a pretty sassy girl, kind of direct but polite.

Sam is the boy who turns wolf. He's "damaged goods" but so polite and so chaste and so sweet, it's endearing. He is not happy about being a wolf in the winter but he accepts it. He too is obsessed with Grace.

Grace's friends are Rachel, Olivia and Isabel. They are good side characters and I really liked Isabel.

I didn't have any issues with any of the characters. I thought they all helped the story.

Writing:
The first noticeable thing about this book is it's chapter titles. Each chapter is written with the chapter number, then the character's point of view that it will be written from and the current temperature. It's either in Grace's POV or Sam's. I thought this was kinda cool. Until the end of the book. It definately took away the surprise and awww factor for me towards the end. Another thing to note about switching POVs like this was that I had to stop several times to re-read to figure out which POV I was in, even though I'd just read the chapter title and it told me it was in Grace's POV but I just came off of a chapter written from Sam's. Not too much of a big deal but it did detach me from the flow of the book.

Another thing to note is that Maggie doesn't dwell on the unimportant things. She describes what needs to be described and doesn't fill in descriptions at every chance. It makes the good parts so much better.

Setting:
I only took off a half point for setting because I don't necessarily have a negative thing to say about the setting but only that I wished for something more. It was all so very common. There was Grace's house, her bedroom, her backyard, the car, the bookstore, the woods, the school, and the hospital. The best scenes were in the woods and the candy store. Nothing really took my breath away or made me say "ohh".

Plot:
The plot was great. It had me wondering what was going to happen next. The writing style also helped with the plot. It kinda jumped around at times. One minute it was cold and Sam wasn't there and the next it was warm and Sam was there kinda thing. And since the POV changed you never really knew what you were going to get next. The ending to this book had me on the edge of my seat. I knew how I wanted it to end but I was trying not to think about it in case that's not what happened. I didn't want to be disappointed and I hate to be disappointed or surprised by something outrageous. The ending wasn't entirely what I wanted but I'm okay with it.

Passion:
It was kinda weird at first to learn that Grace was really in love with a wolf. She didn't know that he could be a "boy". After reading it and absorbing it for a few hours now, I've come to realize that I think she subconsciously did know. You'll understand if you read it.

Anyhow, the passion in this book is amazing. It's so puppy love and reminds me of how my husband and I were at that age. There's very little adult supervision in this book and I find it odd that "more" didn't happen. Considering what the time frame of Sam being a wolf and the lack of supervision I think, personally, a lot "more" would have been happening.

Overall:
I really enjoyed this book. It took me about 3 days to complete it. I didn't want to put it down when I had to. I think most teenage girls and women would enjoy this. I would rate it PG. There's not too much happening that would warrant a PG-13. I was pleasantly surprised to find out just now that there's a sequel coming Fall 2010 and it's called Linger. I really like that title. :)

Cover:
This is the main thing I want to hit on. I passed over this cover so many times within the last few months on other blog sites. I didn't get it. The picture of the cover on most sites does NOT do it justice. I think the title has a lot to do with it. Shiver and the cover just does not go together very well. The first few times I looked at the cover art on sites all I saw were the blue vines and the red dot. I didn't realize the red dot was actually a splatter of blood nor did I even notice the silhouette of the wolf on the right hand side. I also do not love the font that Shiver is in. I think it should have expressed shivering, like it's too cold and the letters are all jagged. I can see on my ARC that it looks like they were trying to do that but from a distance it's just lost.

Trailer:
There's a very brief trailer available too!


You can pre-order this from Amazon.com!

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What do you think? Will you read it? Have you read it? Tell me what you think!