July 3, 2014

Review of Shiver by Maggie Stiefvater


Release Date: August 1, 2009
Publisher: Scholastic Press
Page Count: 390
Format: Paperback
Genre: YA
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.


After hearing everyone rave about Sinner by Maggie Stiefvater and how good it was I decided to read the series it belonged to. I had some hopes for Shiver, hoped that at least it would be an OK book but I was severely disappointed. After about 150 pages into it I couldn't continue reading and had to DNF the book. My already low expectations for Shiver were not met and instead the book was even worse than I thought it would be.

The settings, the characters, the plot, basically everything bored me and I was forcing myself most of the time to keep on reading. The book was slightly different from all the other "werewolf" books out there but it wasn't enough to keep me interested. In Shiver, werewolves transform into humans based on how warm the weather is. During the summer they are usually human but then as it gets colder become werewolves again, the amount of times they can transform is limited as well. The longer they're a werewolf the less time they'll transform and a smaller chance of transforming in the first place, even in extremely warm weather. This piece of information is the only reason I read the 150 pages of Shiver that I did. I was hoping that it would lead to more interesting parts of the book but I was mistaken. The settings were similar to what you would expect in a book like this, abandoned homes, woods, and so on. The characters were a letdown as well, they were not complex or interesting at all. Sam a little bit less because of his background but still overall, the two main characters I met in the amount I read were just simply not worth being read. The book might have slightly improved if I had read on but I don't think it's likely and I'm not willing to take the risk.

After DNF'ing the book I will most likely not be reading any of the other books in the series since I don't think I'll like them if I didn't like the first one. Shiver might be OK for people who like a plain book or a generic werewolf story.

1/5 - DNF'ed


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