Book Description: 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.
Review:
I can count on one hand the number of books that I have physically clasped to my chest upon finishing. As if by that action I could keep that feeling in my heart forever. Shiver is now one of those books.
I remember lying in the snow, a small red spot of warm going cold, surrounded by wolves. They were licking me, biting me, worrying at my body, pressing in. –Shiver
In a way, Shiver made me think of the movie Ladyhawk (1985), in which lovers (Michelle Pfeiffer and Rutegar Haurer) were cursed to live as animals, she as a hawk during the day, and he as a wolf during the night. Only during those brief moments of dusk and twilight could they see each other as humans. The idea is still deeply romantic (something the movie didn't quite pull off), and Maggie has captured that deliciously tense longing perfectly.
It is immediately obvious that Maggie writes beautifully. Hauntingly, painfully, beautifully. And her characters are as bright and crisp as the winter they dread. Chapter by chapter, the book switches first person perspectives from Grace and Sam, the majority of which are Sam's. As characters, they are a study in complimentary contrasts.
Sam is an old soul. He's thoughtful and poetic in how he interprets the world around him. He is consumed with words; their sound, their lyrical quality. He often composes song lyrics in his mind throughout the book. He is all to aware of their absence for him when he is a wolf. And he possesses that one quality that unites all great men: the capacity to love so completely that it encompasses every fiber of their being. For Sam, Grace is his world.
Grace is practical to a fault, at least in the eyes of her rather free spirited parents. She is passionate and brave. She holds her emotions close, but feels deeply. She is resilient in a way that those around her can scarcely fathom. She longs for that one person to connect with mind, body, and soul, but the more rational part of her doesn’t really expect him to come.
In addition the the writing and characters, what I especially loved about this book was the sense of desperation that the author created. The inevitability of Sam returning to his wolf form, possibly forever, juxtaposed with the certain knowledge that Grace and Sam belonged together, that separating them would just as certainly destroy them both.
Every paranormal story about first love will automatically be compared to Twilight, and Shiver is already no exception. The stories and characters in the two books are radically different, but the emotions evoked by both are wonderfully similar. This story of girl who falls in love with a wolf who can only resume his human shape during the summer, will touch your heart, and the writing will delight your senses. Shiver is the first book in The Wolves of Mercy Falls Trilogy. Book two, Linger, will be released July 20, 2010. I’m off to pre-order it.
Sexual Content: (YA titles receive a more thorough breakdown) Teenagers sleep in the same bed together many times. Sex is implied once but not described.
Click HERE to read an excerpt of Shiver
Product Details
Reading level: Young Adult
- Hardcover: 400 pages
- Publisher: Scholastic Press; (August 1, 2009)
- Language: English
- ISBN-10: 0545123267
- ISBN-13: 978-0545123266
- Cover art by Christopher Stengel
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