Books like this one make reading young adult fiction not only entertaining but fully satisfying for adults like me. "Shiver" is an excellent story of love and friendship between a werewolf, Sam, and a teenage girl, Grace. The language is lyrical, poetic and simply beautiful. Maggie knows how to write. The story captures the reader's attention at the very first page and doesn't let up. It's very easy to lose yourself in Shiver's covers. Possibly the most exciting aspect of this book is the author's ability to put you right into the story. You feel like you are a part of the action, watching and experiencing everything that Sam and Grace go through. The ability to show and not tell is what makes this author shine. I will definitely be reading more of her work as it's published. Absolutely worth a five-star rating. ( )

Grace was attacked by wolves when she was younger. Ever since then she’s had an obsession with one of the wolves. They share a connection. She sees him watching her, with his yellow eyes. She wishes there was more. But that’s crazy, right; it’s just a wolf. Until that wolf shows up on her doorstep as a boy. He’s her wolf and he is just as obsessed with her as she is with him. They share a bond that people only dream about; they fill a gap in each other’s lives they didn’t even know was there. But winter is coming and along with it the threat of Sam turning into a wolf for good. Can they find a cure for him or will he disappear from her life forever? ( )

Merideth says: It took me a long time to get into this book, however, I'm glad I stuck with it. Stiefvater has a lyrical writing style that works really well with the sad and doomed love story she's telling, but can be a little bit slow. Grace and Sam's romance, while hurried, felt very authentic. Stiefvater also did an excellent job of reimagining the werewolf mythology in a believable and contemporary way. Grace's no-nonsense persona was a welcome change from the fluttery and passive girl who shows up in a lot of supernatural romance, and Sam was a gentleman and a gentle wolf. The ending, while surprising, makes me eager for the next book. ( )

*WOW....just wow! I am in Love with this book and I can't wait to read "Linger" NOW!
*Now that I got that out of the way...I will say that Maggie Stiefvater did a phenomenal job with writing this story. It's a real winner in my opinion.
*The writing and descriptions of the wolves were beautiful! She really captured the essence of these animals and made me picture them as I was reading. I'd have to say the same thing about most of the book though. Stiefvater's writing really draws you in and keeps you there.
*I got through his book really quickly; The 400 pages flew by because I couldn't seem to pull myself away from Grace and Sam's story. Those two just sent me on an emotional roller coaster!
*Truth be told, by the end of the book I wasn't sure if I wanted to laugh, cry, or scream! It was mostly screaming though because I want to read "Linger" so much!
*I recommend this one and suggest that you pick it up if you haven't already. It's defenitley a five star book for me. ( )

Shiver is about a girl named Grace who was attacked by wolves when she was young. As she lay dying one of the wolves came to her rescue. Ever since then she has treated that particular wolf as a distant but well-loved pet. But unbeknownst to Grace, her wolf is really a boy named Sam—the temperature is what causes Sam to change so he spends his summers a human and his winters as a wolf.

So first off, I loved the entire concept of Shiver. I don’t normally seek out romance novels but I can’t stay away from a good fantasy concept. (That, and the cover is gorgeous. Look at this—I have never seen more beautiful packaging.)

Despite the enjoyable original take on werewolves I had a lot of issues with this novel. It wasn’t the kind of book I could devour in one sitting; I had to keep setting it down and coming back to it.

So, the thing that bothered me most was Grace. Not Grace in general, since I liked her overall, but some of her reactions were just not right. Sam is shot as wolf and he turns back into a human on her front porch. She takes him to the hospital. And then he’s sleeping in her bed and they’re in love? I was like, “Wait—back up.” Along the way, Sam gives her the gist of his werewolf-in-winter, human-in-summer background and she is fine with this. Personally, I would have a million and one questions and I would want an essay-style answer for each of them before I could even begin to rationalize this kind of situation. And I believe that this would be the normal human being reaction, right? Wouldn’t you at least want to know a bit more about the guy before letting him sleep in your bed? With you in it?

Speaking of Grace’s irrational reactions I just have a small nitpick that might be a mildly spoilery nitpick. So if you don’t want to the mild spoilers, skip to the next paragraph. About halfway through the book there is a fade-to-black sex scene. The morning after the sex took place, Sam asked Grace is she slept with him to get back at her parents. Understandably, Grace gets angry. But she doesn’t get angry because he’s implying that she’s the kind of girl that would sleep with someone for revenge. No, she gets mad because he has such poor self-esteem that he wouldn’t think she would have sex with him just because she likes him. Would anyone else get mad because of the former rather than the latter or am I alone on this?

Anyway, that aside, Grace and Sam as a couple was cheesy. I am not equipped to handle cheesy. So I might be biased in saying that I found the relationship between the main characters to be boring. I did a lot of skimming when it was just the two of them being lovey-dovey together. But in my defense, that’s really all they did was moon over each other. There really wasn’t any relationship conflict save for the one mentioned above. In fact, most of the middle of the book was just flat for me. There were too many stretches that were devoid of any real action.

I’m not going to get into a deep discussion about the ending since I don’t want to spoil, but the last forty pages or so, while not exactly action-packed, were probably the best. The resolution felt a little rushed and there was some suspension of disbelief. But I added a star for the last ten or so chapters.

Now that the bitching part is over, time for the things that I did like:

Maggie Stiefvater’s prose is, to put it simply, awesome. It was made of imagery, imagery, imagery. I could see what Grace was seeing and feel how Grace was feeling. If I were rating on the writing alone this would probably earn itself five stars.

I also liked the characters for the most part. My favorite character was Isabel, though I can’t give a justifiable reason as to why other than the fact that I liked reading about her. I hope she gets a big part in Linger.

If you’re a YA paranormal romance fan, rush out and buy Shiver right now. It will have a place on your favorites shelf, I guarantee it. ( )