Review – Shiver

Shiver by Maggie Stiefvater (Barnes & Noble ~ Amazon)

The first of three books from the Wolves of Mercy Falls series (next up is Linger, available August 2010), Shiver is about a boy who is forced to become a wolf whenever the weather turns colder and the girl who loves the constant presence of the yellow-eyed wolf who lives in the woods outside her house in the winter. Needless to say, once he’s human again, romance ensues.

I got this book because it popped up in the “suggestions for you” section after buying another book at B&N. The reviews sounded decent, most agreed that if you liked the Twilight books, you’d like this. So, since I admit I enjoyed the Meyers series, and since Shiver was crazy cheap for a nice big hardcover book, I caved.

My first impression of the book was that yes, it was indeed something a Twitard would love. It has so many elements similar to Twilight that it was almost annoying at first. But I hung in there, and honestly, the book did kind of suck me in the way only good junk lit can do. I’ll give you a brief review the easiest way I can think of – I’m going to compare it to Twilight.

The books are basically the same: two young people, one supernatural and one normal, trying to be together despite the difficulties of said supernatural-ness. Other similarities? Let’s list off a few that made me snort a little when reading: once in human form, these two are inseparable, like how did we manage to live before we met? It is the most natural thing for the one to become the others entire world in a matter of days, of course.

The girl’s mother is an absent-minded artist while her father is absent most the time with work. This means that the girl (Grace) has to basically raise herself, taking care of her child-parents the whole time. Basically, take Bella’s mom and multiply it by two. These are Grace’s parents.

Grace and her wolf-boy (Sam), once meeting each other, soon learn that there is a clicking clock on their relationship, counting down pretty quickly. Grace often talks of how she wishes she could become a wolf like him so they could always be together. Sound familiar? Yeah, I didn’t think so either.

Oh, and did I mention that Grace and Sam have a secret section of the woods? Not exactly a meadow, but a golden section of the woods filled with beautiful birches. When Sam led Grace into this place that she had dreamed about but now knew was real, that it was now their special place … yeah, that was definitely worthy of an eye-roll.

Now, I know it sounds like such a Twi-ripoff, but now let me get into the differences that made this book just a bit higher on the junk lit scale than Twilight. Let’s go in order, shall we? First: this love affair between Sam and Grace wasn’t exactly something that happened in a matter of days. Sort of, but not exactly. Grace had been attacked by Sam’s pack when she was younger and Sam saved her, in wolf form. Somehow human feelings for this girl fuzzed their way through his animal mind, and he sort of fell for her then. Yes, it sounds weird when I write it out like that, but whatever. Meanwhile, Grace, surviving this attack, couldn’t get that beautiful wolf out of her mind. Not only had he saved her life, but this wolf and his strange yellow eyes became a sort of constant in her life. In the world of ditzy parents and, of course, high school, it had to be comforting to always have this beautiful silent companion hovering in the woods outside your house, every winter, never fail. She sort of became obsessed with this pack of wolves in her woods, particularly this one with which she had a bit of history. This goes on for six years, and it only culminates when she finally discovers him in human form. So, yes, their human relationship becomes second-nature extremely quickly, but in fact, they’ve been sort of circling each other for those six years, one way or another. Take it as a mark of subtle writing that not once did any bestiality jokes come to mind when reading this book.

Oh, and the one thing that I really preferred in this book to the Twilight books? In the relationship between Edward and Bella, what do we get to signify their deep eternal love? Pages describing just how beautiful our ole’ Eddie is. I believe the word I’m searching for is perfect. Detailed descriptions. That’s about it. You’re beautiful and I therefore want to be with you. Because I am a teenager. And since we never get to really hear Edward’s mind, we don’t really know exactly why he wants to be with her, except that maybe she’s also beautiful and he can’t read her mind.

In Shiver, the relationship between Grace and Sam is so much more realistic … or as realistic as a relationship between a werewolf and a girl can be. We still get sappy descriptions from each character about the other, but – and this is what I love – they are rarely about looks. Yes, we get a few here and there, expected in a new relationship between two young people, but it’s limited to a brief comment here and there like wow, her legs are sexy when she gets out of bed in that over-sized t-shirt or his crooked nose is imperfectly perfect; but the majority of the sappy bits are bits about the personalities or traits or mannerisms … like how he loves to read German poetry; how he was still shy enough to sometimes blush a little when he complimented her; how her hair is way funky in the morning when she wakes up; her tone-deaf singing in the shower … things like that, that make their relationship seem like something real. I mean, these kids talk about wanting to grow old together, getting a post office box, and putting up Christmas decorations. They want a life together, not just an eternity basking in the perfection of the face of their ‘love’ like some people. *coughBellacough* These sappy bits also don’t take over the story all the time, adding unnecessary length to the book. They love each other, we know it, we get glimpses into the minds of two young people in the glow of a new relationship, but there are other things going on in their lives that take precedence over the fall of her hair or the arch of his back.

It also helps that half the book is in Sam’s perspective while half is in Grace’s. This way we get to see how the love is for both of them; we don’t have to spend the entire book inside the mind of a teenage girl’s mind. Also, when we are in that girl’s mind, it’s a bit more mature than the “mature” Bella’s brain, despite the fact they both apparently had to raise themselves, be the responsible one in the family. Apparently, this burden of sorts did more wonders for Grace than Bella. It made Grace’s character interesting and grown up, all it did for Bella was teach her how to cook and give her a disdain for young marriage.

And, during a bit of the book when the relationship is sort of over for a spell, just like Twilight (only thankfully this doesn’t result in an entire book of moping), but when this happens, what does Grace do? Does she walk around like hole-in-her-chest Bella for hundreds of pages? Nope. She’s desperately sad, misses her love, all that. But her life goes on. She’s not happy about the whole situation, but she copes a helluva lot better than Bella did, proving again that Grace is on a whole different maturity level than Bella. It also removes the horrible “a girl is less than worthless without her man” theme we get so subtly woven throughout the Twilight books.

Second: yes, Grace does wish at times she could change into a wolf just like Sam (who will soon no longer be able to change back into human form, leaving him as a wolf forever … which, admit it, would suck once they’ve finally gotten a chance to be together) but this doesn’t consume her the way Bella wants to be a vampire. Bella’s just annoying, constantly wheedling about how she needs to be turned, now, dammit. Grace just has this wistful dream, like oh wouldn’t it be great if I could change and be with you forever? But it’s never written in a way that it takes over the book, never a main point in the story. It maybe mentioned a handful of times.

Third: that damn woods bit. So cheesy like Bella and Edward’s meadow. But thankfully, it’s cheesy for all of a minute. He takes her there, shows her, she’s like oh, it’s like this place I saw in a dream once, cool, he tells her it was where he grew up as a wolf and he might have sort of slipped a few images of it from his animal mind to her human one, when he’d been saving her those years ago, and then … moment over. It was a cute little moment (but not sickeningly adorable cute), him sharing a bit of his childhood, as it were, with her and that was it. It doesn’t take on this almighty presence like the meadow in Twilight. We never return to the woods like that again.

The story itself was fun, taking an interesting approach at the werewolf legend. The writing was a little … vague? at times. But this didn’t annoy me as much as it might others, it’s like the author trusts us to understand what’s going on without the need for pages and pages of descriptions. Sometimes, this was mildly irritating, paring down what’s going on with too few words, leaving me to fill in too many gaps; but for the most part, it left the book with this minimal feel that allowed me to imagine bits of it myself, making the story my own in a way. Oh, and if you do read this – be prepared for a good, but very abrupt ending.

Of course, the book doesn’t necessarily end, as it’s the first of three. Also, because Twilight makes movie execs money and they must cash in on this fascination with paranormal romance with the young folks while they can – Unique Features has purchased the rights to all three books and they’re taking first dibs to Warner Brothers for production. I’m up in the air about how I feel about this one – the partners of Unique Features have been responsible for lots of adaptations lately (Lord of the Rings, The Last Mimzy, Hairspray – all good, but he also did the adaptation of The Golden Compass, a favorite series of mine that curled up and died when this movie came out.) I’m going to cross my fingers for these guys, try and forget the disaster that was The Golden Compass, and hope for the best. Not just for this movie either, as these two are also involved in the adaptation of another favorite series of mine, The Mortal Instruments. I’m really crossing my fingers for that one because those books are so beloved and they’re cramming three books into one movie (which I understand, though it would have been interesting to see how they would have played it into separate movies. I don’t see it being that marketable with the way the books left the main romance unresolved until the end of book 3.)

So, with this book mostly unheard of, expect to be hearing more of it soon, as it will likely be coming to a screaming-teen-packed theater near you.

*replace “vampires” with “werewolves”, “Edward” with “Sam”, and “Twilight” with “Shiver”