Genre: Young Adult

Release Date: August 1st 2009 (392 pages)

I think Target is my lucky book charm. For those that know my back story – it was a cold rainy day…sorry tangent. Any-hoo I was broswing the Target bookshelves , I was only supposed to be in the Home Good Section oops, and saw Shiver  a Young Adult book about snow and werewolves.   Of course I had to buy it!

Ever since I was a little girl I’ve been fascinated with books with winter settings, snow, ice, blizzards, I swear I was born in Alaska in a previous life.  Since I grew up in Chicago (Go Bears), I’ve associated snow/winter with my childhood. Shiver takes place in chilling Mercy Falls, Minnesota where wolves rule the woods.  Grace has watched the wolves from her house since as long as she can remember.  On a cold winter day, Grace(age 6) dragged from her swing by wolves, shredding and ripping her apart.  As she lays dying, she catches the gaze of the only yellow-eyed wolf.  The wolf regains what little humanity he has left and saves her.  She is never the same again.  Meanwhile Sam lives two lives: in the summer, only a few months,  he is human until the cold makes him shift into a wolf.  Grace (age 17) longs to see her yellow-eyed wolf again.  When a freak wolf attack kills a local teenage boy, a hunting mob is rounded up to kill the wolves in the woods.  Grace is frightened her wolf will be hurt.  As she rushes home, she finds a boy naked, on her back porch.  It’s her yellow-eyed wolf, bleeding from a gun shot wound.  As winter nears and the summers become shorter, Sam must struggle to say human or risk losing his human side and Grace forever. Grace is the only one to survive an attack by wolves and still remain human.  Is she the key to the wolves humanity?—> I’ve got goose bumps reading this.

My Thoughts

This is my 3rd YA novel I’ve read this year (Stephanie Meyers broke my YA cherry) and thought Shiver was written beautifully. If you’ve read the Time Traveler’s Wife, Shiver mimics a similar writing style with the hero and heroine points of view.  The chapters are labeled by temperature, adding a chilling and suspenseful timeline till Sam changes into a wolf. Most werewolves books these days seem to focus on the moon as the change agent, Stiefvater’s adds a creative spin by using the season and cold for her wolves. Although this book was way more serious than Intertwined by Gena Showatler and lacked sparklie vampires,  this is one book that will stay with me even after “The End.”

Rating 4  Smokin’ Smooches

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