Shiver (The Wolves of Mercy Falls, #1)

by Maggie Stiefvater

[Grace]

I picked this up hoping it would be the antidote to the Twilight venom that is coursing through the veins of young adult literature these days. I ended up with very mixed feelings about this book.

My first complaint was that the writer's descriptions, especially in action-packed or fast-paced scenes, was lacking. The very first scene of the book, for example, showed our main character lying on her back surrounded by a pack of wolves. Her narration leaves it unclear as to whether she is being attacked by them or if they are just sort of checking her out, as there is no hint of blood, pain, or panic of any kind. It is clarified in later chapters that she was, indeed, being attacked. Fail.

To be fair, I actually really liked the main character's love interest, Sam, and the concept of the werewolves in the novel. These creatures take on their canine forms during the cold months, and revert to their human bodies when it starts to get warmer. They cannot shift back and forth at will, and as they get older, they stay in their wolf forms longer and longer until they stop changing back at all. In their wolf bodies, their human knowledge and memories are replaced by feral instincts. Sam, however, seems to be able to cling to the memory of Grace, the girl he saved from his pack when she was eleven. He watches her from the woods behind her house. She becomes attached to "her" wolf, feeling an unexplained sense of longing when he is gone during the summer. One winter, a hunter shoots Sam, and he drags himself onto Grace's back deck, where he inexplicably changes back into his human form despite the cold weather.

Their romance blossoms as Grace and Sam try desperately to keep him from reverting back to his wolf form, because Sam can feel that this will be the last time that he changes. The author succeeded at illustrating the desperation and heartbreak in this conflict, but also in portraying them as normal teenagers at the same time. They had normal conversations, with the sort of quirky asides that real teenagers have. This sounds unremarkable, but I have encountered so many YA novels where the awkward, anachronistic slang and the stereotypical chatter makes it painfully apparent that the first digit of the author's age hasn't been a 1 in decades.

Sam was actually sweet and romantic, not creepy and possessive like a certain sparkling vampire I could name. I wanted to like Grace, but she exhibited similar traits to Bella Swan, such as a bitterness towards her parents. I had a hard time feeling sorry for a girl whose parents provide her with a huge house, three square meals, all the clothes and books she could ever want, and so on, but don't always indulge her need for attention. Boohoo.

My biggest complaint with the book was that it actually wrapped the story up a little too tightly. The remaining loose ends were really just frayed bits that I really couldn't bring myself to care about whether or not they got tied up. As a result, even though there is a sequel, I don't feel compelled at all to continue reading. This leads me to believe that the author intended for it to be a single, stand-alone novel, and when it was successful, her publisher convinced her to expand it into a series. This makes me uneasy, because these types of books are rarely good.

In the end, I gave it two stars, mostly because the reinvented werewolf concept was so interesting and because the author really convinced me to invest myself in Grace and Sam's plight (even if for just one book).