Shiver
I suppose there's no better time for supernatural romances, but I'm part of the small percentage of Amazon reviewers that didn't like this book by Maggie Stiefvater. It's a yalitlovers fave as well, but after the first quarter it was a struggle to finish because of the uneven action, overly mushy prose and too many story conveniences. It's like the author made a checklist from TV Tropes and built the story from there. The most glaring one is the absolutely absent parents, which is not an uncommon theme in YA lit, but everyone's parents seem to be absent from the mean girl to Grace, the heroine, and her friends. Grace's absent parents are set up to be a source of anger for Grace, but that never gets resolved. There's too many plot threads and too little suspense.
It also seems like whole chunks of story are missing, particularly towards the end; characters from the beginning are forgotten, such as best friend Rachel. The last quarter, I tell ya, what a Grade A literary trainwreck. The sad thing is that Stiefvater has set up such a compelling story with Grace, who falls in love with a wolf named Sam, who turns human in the summer. The cold weather turns him and his pack back into wolves. As a big fan of Ladyhawke, I thought this was right up my alley. Now there's a love story. I cry every time at the scene where Isabeau gets shot through with an arrow when she's a hawk.
The one thing I did like about this book was the alternating point of view between Grace and Sam. That was a good idea on the author's part. This book just had so much potential that went right out the door. I can accept a few contrivances and conveniences, but there were way too many for me to enjoy the book. I realize a lot of why I didn't like it is my adult perspective - I can see why teenage girls would love this book absolutely though.
- It's the details that bother me. For example, Sam breaks into the home of the rich mean girl, who lives on a sprawling estate with six outbuildings, but apparently they don't have an alarm system.
- Beck, who looks after the werewolves and whose money funds their safehouse, is a bad person. My eyes bugged at what makes him bad, yet no one seems to care about this. It makes what he says later on even more suspect because you don't know how truthful he's being. However, again, this is put to the side.
- On that note, Beck is pretty dumb for being a smart rich lawyer. Really, he should have entrusted the safety of the pack to someone who isn't a werewolf. As the weather gets colder, Beck becomes more useless because he can't leave the house.
- Despite having the safe house to live in, Sam lives in Grace's bedroom for weeks until they reveal him to his parents. Then he goes to live in the study. Is it possible for parents to be that oblivious? And the Dad is OK with a boyfriend living in the same house when Grace hasn't graduated from high school and is still 17?
- Similarly at the end, the kids break into a low-income medical clinic in an effort to cure the werewolves with meningitis. Like, hello, no security guards? The mean girl just happens to know how to draw blood? WTF!!! How she gets the meningitis tainted blood is also a big eyeroll - sorry, just doesn't happen.
- They rush ahead with the cure with no regards for blood type mismatching either.
- Why the heck are the wolves living in Minnesota? OK, so warmer weather just makes them more sensitive to cold where mere air conditioning can make them change, but why don't they move to a place with somewhat longer summers?
- One of the wolves, Shelby, is set up as a romantic rival for Grace. She does some pretty crazy and improbable things, even for a fantasy story about werewolves. Her death and reappearance are no doubt going to pop up the sequel. It's just too convenient.
It also seems like whole chunks of story are missing, particularly towards the end; characters from the beginning are forgotten, such as best friend Rachel. The last quarter, I tell ya, what a Grade A literary trainwreck. The sad thing is that Stiefvater has set up such a compelling story with Grace, who falls in love with a wolf named Sam, who turns human in the summer. The cold weather turns him and his pack back into wolves. As a big fan of Ladyhawke, I thought this was right up my alley. Now there's a love story. I cry every time at the scene where Isabeau gets shot through with an arrow when she's a hawk.
The one thing I did like about this book was the alternating point of view between Grace and Sam. That was a good idea on the author's part. This book just had so much potential that went right out the door. I can accept a few contrivances and conveniences, but there were way too many for me to enjoy the book. I realize a lot of why I didn't like it is my adult perspective - I can see why teenage girls would love this book absolutely though.
- It's the details that bother me. For example, Sam breaks into the home of the rich mean girl, who lives on a sprawling estate with six outbuildings, but apparently they don't have an alarm system.
- Beck, who looks after the werewolves and whose money funds their safehouse, is a bad person. My eyes bugged at what makes him bad, yet no one seems to care about this. It makes what he says later on even more suspect because you don't know how truthful he's being. However, again, this is put to the side.
- On that note, Beck is pretty dumb for being a smart rich lawyer. Really, he should have entrusted the safety of the pack to someone who isn't a werewolf. As the weather gets colder, Beck becomes more useless because he can't leave the house.
- Despite having the safe house to live in, Sam lives in Grace's bedroom for weeks until they reveal him to his parents. Then he goes to live in the study. Is it possible for parents to be that oblivious? And the Dad is OK with a boyfriend living in the same house when Grace hasn't graduated from high school and is still 17?
- Similarly at the end, the kids break into a low-income medical clinic in an effort to cure the werewolves with meningitis. Like, hello, no security guards? The mean girl just happens to know how to draw blood? WTF!!! How she gets the meningitis tainted blood is also a big eyeroll - sorry, just doesn't happen.
- They rush ahead with the cure with no regards for blood type mismatching either.
- Why the heck are the wolves living in Minnesota? OK, so warmer weather just makes them more sensitive to cold where mere air conditioning can make them change, but why don't they move to a place with somewhat longer summers?
- One of the wolves, Shelby, is set up as a romantic rival for Grace. She does some pretty crazy and improbable things, even for a fantasy story about werewolves. Her death and reappearance are no doubt going to pop up the sequel. It's just too convenient.