Shiver by Maggie Stiefvater

On the Back of the Book

The wolves circled round me, tongues and teeth and growls.

When a local boy is killed by wolves, Grace's small town becomes a place of fear and suspicion. But Grace can't help being fascinated by the pack and by one yellow-eyed wolf in particular. There's something about him - something almost human.

Then she meets a yellow-eyed boy whose familiarity takes her breath away...

My Thoughts

I'm not exactly sure about what I want to say about Shiver, so I thought I'd start with a little story. Once upon a time there was a girl who loved to read YA PNR and UF. She immersed herself in tales of true love that spanned from mere days to never ending centuries. All she wanted was to find her perfect man and that he would love her as much as the boys in the books did. Days turned to years and still the girl's prince never showed. Slowly she turned jaded and stopped believing. She finally saw the stories for what they truly are and stopped trying to make fact of fiction. The end. It's a [now not] so little known fact about me that I'd love to fall in love just like they do in the books and movies and in a way this book preys on that hope. It preys on the fantasies of young women everywhere because every woman (whether she admits it or not) wants to fall in love.

The characters are really obvious. Grace (great name, one of my personal favourites.) is your average heroine. She's never had a boyfriend  because she's in love with a wolf. (Creepy, I know.) As a character nothing about her stands out, however with books like this it does tend to be a matter of *insert own personality here*. Sam isn't much better, I preferred the couple of chapters where he was a wolf, at least then he had a bit of individuality. There was one character that I did like and I wanted to see more of: Rachel. For me she shone on the page, all caffeine and sunshine. I loved her.

I thought the end was far-fetched and poorly explained, I didn't like the characters (except Rachel), the whole thing was cliched, the spelling of forever as 'for ever' annoyed me, so tell me this: why did I enjoy this book? I finally plucked up the courage and picked up the book, I went in with my eyes open. I took the book for what it was and not what I wanted it to be and that was enough.

My Rating

3.5 stars - I believe that this is what they call a guilty pleasure, but even with that status I can't quite bring myself to give it a 4. I do recommend it though, it's much better than other books of this genre. I'm definitely going to read the rest of the trilogy and what's more, I might just buy it myself.

A Final Note

There's a bit of swearing and some sex references. Not for under 14s. Also sorry for any typos, I had a fight with my cat... and lost.

• Book summary from  the back of the book
• Image from Google