Saturday, March 31, 2012

#20 Shiver by Maggie Stiefvater

I will admit to being a HUGE fan of the Twilight books.  I read the first book, Twilight, with intense skepticism but was hooked very quickly.  I devoured the subsequent books and happily watched them all come to life as movies.  I am eagerly anticipating Breaking Dawn, Part 2.  After reading all four of those books, it comes as no surprise that I am no strager to werewolves and vampire stories.  I, quite honestly, preferred the wolves in Twilight to the rather creepy bloody-thirsty vampires.  Maybe it's the animal lover in me, who knows?  As a result, I happily downloaded Shiver onto my Nook, eagering awaiting another story about the wolves I had grown to love so much. 

I feel compelled to let readers of my blog know that Maggie Stiefvater is a graduate of Mary Washington College, my alma mater.  While I did not know her, because she is WAY younger than me, I am proud that she is having such huges success as a writer and I don't want my blog, which is just my opinion as well all know, to impact her future sales in any way.  With that being said, here goes...Shiver is no Twilight.  If you are into the very exciting action packed scenes where vampires battle it out with werewolves, reading Shiver will surely disappoint you.  Now, if you are totally into the love story side of Twilight and can handle a more emotional, get inside your head kind of story, by all means, buy and read Shiver

The love story Stiefvater creates between Sam and Grace is beyond words.  If you are a believer that you have found your soulmate, Sam and Grace's story might make you question your ideals and reconsider what a true soulmate is.  It is intense.  In fact, some reviewers of the book on BN.com criticized Shiver for portraying a teenage boy in an unrealistic light.  What 17/18 year old boy would act like Sam?  We can believe Edward in Twilight because we all know that he's not really 17, he's really over 100.  His wisdom and maturity are founded.  Sam's story is different for sure, but I found him believable and found myself envious of the intense love he had for Grace, who certainly reciprocated.

I will leave the book to spill out the details but I will say I re-read the last chapter twice as it left me hanging on a cliff, with my mouth wide open, asking my family, "Did that really happen?"  Of course, they had no idea what I was talking about and just looked at me with a funny look and went back to whatever they were doing before I spoke out.  The issue I am currently dealing with now is, do I download the next book in the trilogy, Linger, and read it, or do I patiently wait until Tuesday for Richard Paul Evans' new book in The Walk series to come out?  Well, as I typed that sentence, I downloaded Linger.  I just have to find out what happened and get the heck off this cliff!

Happy reading everyone!
:) Dodie

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