Shiver (Wolves of Mercy Falls #1) – Maggie Stiefvater

Title: Shiver (Wolves of Mercy Falls #1) by Maggie Stiefvater
Publishing Info: August 4, 2011 by Scholastic Inc.
Genres: Paranormal, Young Adult
Find it on the web: Buy from Amazon // GoodreadsDate Completed: May 4, 2012
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Grace is fascinated by the wolves in the woods behind her house; one yellow-eyed wolf in particular. Every winter, she watches him, but every summer, he disappears. Sam leads two lives. In winter, he stays in the frozen woods, with the protection of the pack. In summer, he has a few precious months to be human . . . until the cold makes him shift back again. When Grace and Sam finally meet, they realize they can't bear to be apart. But as winter nears, Sam must fight to stay human - or risk losing himself, and Grace, for ever.

Well, I guess I should have stuck with my notions that told me I just don’t like werewolf stories. The story itself was by all means a teen paranormal romance, plain and simple. I felt like a lot of the writing was a little too YA for me and a lot of the love story seemed naive. This was one of the times I should NOT have been a 25-year-old reading a YA novel. I didn’t really feel like I felt a lot of depth from either Grace or Sam and to be honest, the whole time I was reading this book, I just thought Twilight, Twilight, Twilight. Since that was the first werewolf story I knew and it was also a teen romance, very hard for me not to go there. I was constantly comparing the two books and Twilight came up ahead. I think this would have been a great book, more suited for the teen genre, as it should be. It was more straight-forward than adding more layers into the romance and the characters’ past and future. All around, it was okay, but just really not for me.

 It wasn’t bad, but it wasn’t good. Hm. ‘Nuff said.

 

If You Liked This, You Might Like…
Twilight by Stephenie Meyer — Okay, stupid recommendation, I know. Because if you haven’t read it by now, you probably won’t and I’m sure most people have already read it. But I have to put it as a recommendation simply because I could not get it out of my head the whole time! And if for some reason you haven’t read it and saw the movie instead, read the book! Light years better.
…OR…
Dead Until Dark by Charlaine Harris — The first of the Sookie Stackhouse books. I chose this as a recommendation because it’s also got the paranormal element. These books are really enjoyable. I watch the True Blood TV show too – Totally different from each other and both are great.