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. (source)

Check out Scott Reads It for more reviews! I think Shiver is the most surprising book I've read all year. For years I have seen Shiver literally everywhere: bookstores, libraries, Goodreads, book recommendations, and so many other places. Yet despite the fact that Shiver is a literary sensation, I wasn't too interested in picking it up. I was kind of afraid of not liking it and being disappointed due to all the hype. Shiver surprised me completely and exceeded all expectations I had for it. This book is one of the most moving and emotional novels I've read in such a long time. Shiver is the story of Grace and Sam who meet under extremely unpleasant conditions. Grace has always watched Sam in the forest with his yellow eyes. One day Grace meets Sam in human form and everything changes for better or worse. Sam has to struggle to fight the wolf inside of him to be with Grace and it's not going to be easy. Shiver is unlike any paranormal book I've ever read and probably will ever read. It tosses out everything you know about werewolves like the full moon, how silver is their weakness, etc. Instead of using the classic mythology, Stiefvater creates her own new rules that govern the werewolves and their ability to shift. They can't shift on command or shift only on the full moon like most werewolves in the media. Maggie Stiefvater's Shiver is beautiful, emotional, and truly heart-breaking. At the end of the audiobook I was listening to, Stiefvater said she wrote Shiver to make readers emotional and cry. I felt like Stiefvater wrenched my heart out and shattered it a thousand times. The last time I was so attached to characters in a novel was Clockwork Princess and that ended in a waterfall of tears. Maggie Stiefvater turned me into an emotional wreck and she plays with a reader's emotions at so many points in this book. The protagonists, Sam and Grace, are two characters I got extremely attached to. I felt this connection with them and I understood how they feel and why they acted the way they did. I definitely think it's because I'm kind of a mixture of both Sam and Grace. Rarely is an author truly appeal to capture what being a teenager is truly like and the cavalcade of emotions that flood through you. Stiefvater hit the bull's eye with her chapters from Sam's POV and they sounded exactly how a guy would think. Grace's chapters were distinctly different from Sam's yet they were also executed perfectly. I loved Grace's snarky attitude and humor which contrasted Sam's more serious, grave situation. Stiefvater helps the reader understand why Sam and Grace act the way they do with their rich, developed backstories. I think a writer has succeeded writing a fantastic novel, when the reader can empathize with the writer's characters. I didn't just empathize with the characters, I felt like I was living through the pages feeling Sam and Grace's pain, love, and joy. It sounds crazy but it's so true. Authors can't only write fantastic protagonists, they have to write also superb supporting characters. Stiefvater created such an interesting bunch of supporting characters and I also felt this tugging connection to them. The supporting characters were so lifelike and they reminded me of people I went to highschool with. Even though Stiefvater makes her characters read like high school students, she manages to avoid all the cliches that usually come with these types of characters. Stiefvater even made characters who didn't seem so likeable like Isabelle Culpepper evolve and change into characters I admired. Stiefvater's writing style is very poetic and helps the reader immerse the reader into the world of Mercy Falls. Her descriptions are well-written and helped paint vivid pictures in my mind of what was happening. Stiefvater knows how to write a compelling story and she left me longing for more of Sam and Grace. I felt this need to immediately pick up Linger and Forever, and read them back-to-back. Shiver is a deep, emotional, profound novel that I could read again hundreds of times and I probably would find new things to obsess over each time. This book perfectly explores what it means to be human and how easily our humanity can be torn away from us. Shiver is a thought-provoking, and meaningful novel that is nothing at all like Twilight despite the fact that the two books are constantly compared. This is a book that I probably wouldn't have appreciated years ago when I first saw it in stores, I'm glad that I read Shiver at this point in my life. I could re-read this book many times in the future and I definitely can imagine doing so.

You know, since this book has been sitting in my shelf for over a year, I thought it was time that I finally read it. I initially put it away because I did not want the series to end. Now, that I have read it, it didn’t feel as satisfying as I thought it would.Plot. First of all, the plot felt the exactly the same as the first two books. They are still fighting against their wolf-selves as well as threats from the human world. Nothing much change other than the fact that now their were finally going to make a decision about their future and well being.Love. The love interest of course didn’t stray away from what has already been grown. Of course now, Sam is just trying to wait for Grace and is even going to great lengths to protect her the best his can. In this book, I found more interest in the minor characters, Cole and Isabel. Their story really shined and brought of light a lot of truth.Cure. Well, that’s one way to put it. But does is work is the question.Ending/Future. I think the way the book ended is not very satisfying. I mean, yeah, they have to place to live with no fear of being hunted and also a cure. Still, I felt like this book ended vague, cause you can still have questions but also complete cause it ended on a good note.Forever is a good conclusion. Emerging with a good ending, leaving the reader hopeful, Forever is great.

I saw this book on a list a long time ago and didn’t think much of it for a while. I figured I’d get around to it eventually. I’m very glad I did. Stiefvater’s wonderful prose was the first thing to draw me in. It’s very melancholy, but beautiful. Once I began, I couldn’t make myself stop.

 

I’m not sure that I found a theme to this book. Obviously, Grace and Sam are in love, so love is an important aspect. But their love is the intense kind that is complicated and rarely found in real life. It’s an unconditional, constant love. It’s as if they’ve been together for years. They fit together like pieces to a puzzle. But I think the conflict is what is more important in this story. Will Sam be able to keep himself from shifting? If he shifts will he be able to shift back the next summer? Is there a cure that will allow him to stay with Grace? This is what comes to me when I think back on this book. A simple plot with a simple conflict: can they overcome their obstacles to stay together? If there’s some deeper message to this book, I haven’t found it.

 

As far as characters go, they’re wonderful. Grace is relatively level-headed and responsible. She’s nearly more of an adult than her parents. She’s mature and handles some of the strangest and most difficult of her situations with a cool head and determination that I admire. Sam is gentle, sensitive, and terribly romantic. He’s the type of guy little girls dream of finding when they grow up. I like him better than all the troubled guys of most young-adult novels because he’s not so broody. His sadness is reserved and genuine. He bears through his struggles with a sincerity you won’t find in many other characters. I feel like I’m not explaining him very well, but that’s the best I can do to put it into words.

 

There wasn’t much character development in this book. They’re all pretty static. It’s definitely plot-driven, but that didn’t really bother me.

Spoiler alert! I wish it had a real ending! I'm not fully disappointed because it was one of the ones where you can kind of decide... But I really wanted her to make a decision for me! Oh well. It's over now and I can move on to the next!