Shiver - Maggie Stiefvater

Series: The Wolves of Mercy Falls, Book 1
Genre: Fantasy, Young Adult
392 pages
Published: 2009
My Rating: 5++ / 5 stars

Blurb:  For years, Grace has watched the wolves in the woods behind her house. One yellow-eyed wolf--her wolf--is a chilling presence she can't seem to live without. Meanwhile, Sam has lived two lives: In winter, the frozen woods, the protection of the pack, and the silent company of a fearless girl. In summer, a few precious months of being human . . . until the cold makes him shift back again.
Now, Grace meets a yellow-eyed boy whose familiarity takes her breath away. It's her wolf. It has to be. But as winter nears, Sam must fight to stay human--or risk losing himself, and Grace, forever.

Review:
Shiver is a beautiful, poignant that did give me the shivers at times. The nice kind of shivers.

Grace lives in Mercy Falls with her parents who missed their classes to parental school and are more like hippies who bunk with Grace in the same house. Despite the lack of any parental support, she's independent and confident.

"I’m raising myself" she says…"It seemed like you ought to pick the sort of person you would be, no matter what your parents were like."

Grace has a thing for the wolves in Mercy Falls. She was mauled by wolves when she was younger, and saved by one yellow eyed wolf who she now thinks of as her own wolf. For six years now she's seen the wolf watch her from the shadows, there every winter and gone every summer. Until suddenly things change when a local boy is killed and a strange boy turns up at her porch.

The yellow-eyed cute boy is none other than her wolf. But its September and getting colder every day, and Sam shouldn’t be a human but in wolf form as the cold gets nearer. He knows he will change soon, but he doesn’t want to, now that he knows Grace. He also knows this may be his last year as a human, and he wants a lot more time with the girl he's watched over for so long and is in love with.

At times Sam seems from a generation gone by, with his polite ways, shy smiles and quiet words. And his poetry.

"A boy stuffed so full of words that they spilled out of me."

One thing different that worked well in this book was Sam's vulnerability and sensitivity. Almost emo for a werewolf, while Grace the human in the relationship was almost too independent. Two different people shaped into characters by their upbringing and surroundings, and yet joined by a delicate emotion - kinship and love. The scenes in Grace's bedroom, Beck's room the first time they go there and also the candy store will have you feeling like you're really there, experiencing the moment with Sam and Grace.

Maggie Stiefvater werewolves aren't the all powerful, long lived, moon changing variety that every other PNR book on werewolves depicts. Sam explains what happens to them not in a paranormal but more a scientific way, and rather than the qualities you read in other books, reading about the lives of these wolves will make you mourn for them and their loss of humanity. I wont say more, go read to find out what I mean.

The writing is beautiful and heartbreaking. Every chapter begins with the temperature of the day since this story is tied in with the seasons and the weather.
I went through a series of emotions while reading this book. Terror for the wolves, joy for Grace and Sam, sorrow for Sam and his future with Grace, touched by the sensitivity these two show for each other and specially by Sam trying to do the right thing for Grace. But mostly from somewhere in the middle of the book, I felt real scared about how this book was going to end. But it was all worth it. This one leaves you with a warm feeling inside and one reading wont be enough.