Shiver
I didn't expect to like Shiver by Maggie Stiefvater. In my experience, books are either well-written or well-plotted. Never both. And because I am a plot person, I will always take functional language (matched with a story that does new and exciting things with old elements: if the story is crap, I will probably throw the book against a wall) over poetry. (Poetry and I only get along if there are rhymes involved.)
Shiver falls in the former category. It quotes Rilke, for Pete's sake.
Shiver is like Twilight, but with 100x better writing. It's about an intense love between a teenage girl and a teenage boy with a supernatural malady (in Shiver... he's a werewolf). The language is beautiful enough that it's like taking all that love and describing it from unusual angles. It's the plot that's functional (instead of the language). I get that we're supposed to be luxuriating in these beautifully illustrated pieces (boy and girl at the bookstore, boy and girl in a sweetshop) and for the most part I was ok with that. I did find myself poking the characters every now and then with, "but what about this plot point?" Said plot point would not be addressed for another hundred pages and it would be dismissed by a quickly introduced complication which was not presented earlier. Somewhat frustrating, but right, supposed to be enjoying how pretty it all is.
I think what I liked about it was that the characters were very different from me, but felt believable as people. The boy is this sensitive, musician type who riffs song lyrics when things happen to him. (I cannot write music to save my life.) The girl is a bit more like me (analytical) but her parents don't care about her which is something I just can't relate to at all.
More than anything, this reflects on the author who must have an ounce of music in her soul for the boy to have music in his. The author's an artist, no doubt.
Just look at the trailer for the sequel that she made:
Apparently, she made everything in it, all the stop motion animation, all the music.
I am not that kind of person at all, so it's kind of awesome to see someone who is.
Extra Link: I really like her choice for the boy's actor.
Shiver falls in the former category. It quotes Rilke, for Pete's sake.
Shiver is like Twilight, but with 100x better writing. It's about an intense love between a teenage girl and a teenage boy with a supernatural malady (in Shiver... he's a werewolf). The language is beautiful enough that it's like taking all that love and describing it from unusual angles. It's the plot that's functional (instead of the language). I get that we're supposed to be luxuriating in these beautifully illustrated pieces (boy and girl at the bookstore, boy and girl in a sweetshop) and for the most part I was ok with that. I did find myself poking the characters every now and then with, "but what about this plot point?" Said plot point would not be addressed for another hundred pages and it would be dismissed by a quickly introduced complication which was not presented earlier. Somewhat frustrating, but right, supposed to be enjoying how pretty it all is.
I think what I liked about it was that the characters were very different from me, but felt believable as people. The boy is this sensitive, musician type who riffs song lyrics when things happen to him. (I cannot write music to save my life.) The girl is a bit more like me (analytical) but her parents don't care about her which is something I just can't relate to at all.
More than anything, this reflects on the author who must have an ounce of music in her soul for the boy to have music in his. The author's an artist, no doubt.
Just look at the trailer for the sequel that she made:
Click to viewApparently, she made everything in it, all the stop motion animation, all the music.
I am not that kind of person at all, so it's kind of awesome to see someone who is.
Extra Link: I really like her choice for the boy's actor.