I've been seeing this around the young adult blogs, so figured I tried it when I saw the library had it. I liked the premise she used with her wolves storyline. Its a bit of a twist to the tradition werewolf story, which gives them more of a natural existence, for a supernatural being. Instead of changing once a month, the werewolves change when the weather gets cold enough, returning to human form when its warmer weather, but eventually changing into a wolf permanently.

Unfortunately for me, there was not enough focus on the wolf story line. The romance side of the story took over, and overpowered the supernatural side. It features one moony high school girl who falls in love with a werewolf teen guy. The story is told from both perspectives, so you get two voices internally wondering if the other likes them, how much they like them, and just plain thinking about the other all the damn time. It feels fake, and sugary and just not very enticing.

Another strike against this audiobook was that I just didn't like either of the readers at all. There was not much emotion or any impression that acting was occurring. It seemed more like they were just reading, with very little changes in tone. Plus the woman reading Grace's chapters sounded very young, and the guy reading Sam's chapters sounded much older than the woman, so my psyche was coming up with an unpleasant mental image. My dislike of the readers may have influenced my impression of the novel, but by the end it was difficult to separate the two sides.

If you want to try this one, I strongly recommend you skip the audiobook and just read it. ( )

This is my first Maggie Stiefvater book and will not be my last.

This book follows Grace who was attacked by wolves in her backyard at a young age. Grace was saved by one wolf that she took a liking to and was always looking out for named Sam. Grace is constantly watching the wolves by herself and hoping to see Sam.

Grace was obsessed with the wolves in an unhealthy way. She was beginning to lose friends over the wolf obsession. My main reason I enjoyed reading about Grace was she was so passionate about the wolf thing that in the end it worked for me. Grace took her time to learn as much as she could about the wolves by studying them and wanting to learn more about Sam. Grace does grow as a character when she is needed to find a solution to the wolf situation in her town.

Sam is a lot more complicated of a main character. He is a wolf to begin the book and we get to learn a lot about how he transforms to a wolf and what goes on with the wolves. I enjoyed getting to learn about Sam and his life throughout the book. I felt more connected to Sam and could feel his struggles in his chapters because he didn’t think he had a lot of choices left. I also felt more emotions coming from Sam versus Grace during the book so it felt more real to me.

The story is told from both POV of Sam and Grace. I loved that we got to see what each of them were thinking during the book and it helped keep me attention while listening to the audio switching back and forth. I loved that we got to see the story unfold from both of their eyes.

I did like the romance that Maggie created between Grace and Sam is cute. It came on quickly in the book, but in the same time they were both studying each other from a distance for a long time so it worked.

This book has a lot of buildup and backstory thrown into it so the pacing is a little slower. I enjoyed learning about the wolves and how they were surviving in the area. Maggie does an excellent job crafting the story. ( )

This is the book that practically the blog-o-sphere erupted about (along with [b:Catching Fire|6148028|Catching Fire (Hunger Games, #2)|Suzanne Collins|http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51nJ3eDhl5L._SL75_.jpg|6171458] by Suzanne Collins and [b:Fire|6001758|Fire|Kristin Cashore|http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1236262766s/6001758.jpg|6128277] by Kristin Cashore), or so it seemed to me. Almost every one of my blog friends either read this, wanted to read this or wanted to have its babies (well joking about that last one). And I admit when I first heard about it, I wasn't 'OMG NEED NOW' excited, interested, but it wasn't something that made me want to run around begging for a copy. I haven't read Stiefvater before (which shocks people for some reason) actually, but I had a chance to nab this at BEA and I took it. Some interest is still interest after all.

I'm glad I did and I'm glad that I didn't read previous reviews. I think if I had I would have gone into this expecting something else. As it is the book felt so wistful to me. Half the cast wanted to be something they couldn't be, the other half wanted to ignore the truth and everybody was so lost it was painful at times to read. Its slightly more violent then I thought it would be too (which isn't a bad thing, I'm a slightly more violent person then people suspect as well).

Grace is...relatable for me. She's not perfect or gorgeous or stunningly intelligent--she's got some messed up emotional baggage, friends who are either really fabulous or kind of flaky (depending on how you look at them) and her family life is just this side of cringe-worthy. I love her. She doesn't whine about her situation, doesn't angst about the fact she's in love with a guy who's an animal 9 months out of the year (if not more), just takes everything as it comes at her and works hard not to let the painful things bog her down too much.

How I feel about Sam is a mystery to me. He was pretty plain spoken, an open book practically with his feelings and didn't lie that often (and when he did it was understandable), but something eluded me. I think because we focused on his pain for so much of the book--even when it was Grace's POV she dwelled less on the immediate problems she faced and more on how much pain Sam had to be in and how bad his past was--that when things began to shift towards a defining moment I felt like the book ended in one sense.

Slowly the tension builds and you can almost feel it. Each chapter has the temperature listed beneath the Name and chapter number, giving you a sense of how much Sam is struggling (since when he gets too cold his body automatically shifts to wolf form) in any given chapter. More then that though is the dwindling population of the clan as more and more either die or can no longer shift to human form again. There is of course only two options open to them--either allow nature to take its course or supplement the clan with new blood (so to speak). The ramifications of an unwise transformation however can be brutal and even if things begin all right, that doesn't mean they stay all right.

Shiver is a wonderful book with a chilling (check that pun out) atmopsheric feel to it and a narrative voice to match. Suspenseful. That's how I would describe it in one word. ( )

I loved it. The more I read the more I didn't want to set the book down. ( )

I loved Sam's character although I don't think he's your typical emo teenager. That could be b/c of his childhood and 'condition.' Overall, it was just a sweet love story. I have read the whole series (Linger, Forever) and really liked them. I wish there were more. ( )