Review – Shiver by Maggie Stiefvater (4/5 stars)

I had seen a lot of buzz around this book so I was really excited to read it. I liked it, it is a pretty darn good book. Looks like there are supposed to be two more books in the series “Linger” and “Forever”.

Grace was attacked by wolves when she was a little girl. S and somewhat he remembers one wolf that drove off all the other wolves; she remembers the wolf with the yellow eyes. At almost 18 years old Grace still has a deep fascination with the wolves in the woods. In fact she sees the wolf with the yellow eyes quite often and she feels like she belongs with him. Sam is a normal kid during the summer, but when the temperature drops he becomes something different. Things get complicated when a kid is killed by the wolves, but then turns up later not at all dead.

There were a lot of good things about this story. I liked how each chapter was labeled both with the temperature and the character whose point of view it was. The idea of people becoming werewolves when the temperature lowers is intriguing, as is the idea that their time being able to convert to human only lasts so long. I also thought that the book was beautifully written, Sam especially talked in beautiful prose. The characters are very likable and easy to relate with.

The only thing that bothered me was the pace of the plot. The plot is painfully slow. There is a ton of time spent just recounting the details of Sam and Grace spending time together; and while these details are sweet, and somewhat touching, I think there were too many of them. That being said the pace picks up toward the end of the novel and the ending itself was great, if a bit rushed. If the last part of the book had taken place over maybe the last half of the novel instead of the last fifth, the pacing would have been perfect.

Overall, I liked the book. It was a pretty good read. I look forward to reading the next book in the series when it comes out.