THIS IS A REREAD! I read it first about, say, 2 years ago now...and I've just read Sinner, so I wanted to reread Shiver because I MISS LITTLE GRACE AND SAM AND ISABEL AND COLE. (I'll be honest: mostly Isabel and Cole...but I do love Sam and Grace.) Second time round, my thoughts? I noticed, compared to Maggie Stiefvater's writing now, Shiver was a lot thicker on description and action-less prose. The description still has the beautiful woah moments, but not as often as, say, The Raven Boys or The Scorpio Races. And I also noticed that Sam and Grace literally RAN into their relationship. They knew of each other, but not really each other, if you know what I mean. Usually I'd be twitchy at that...but it's Sam. He's so sweet and unassuming. And Grace is so black-and-white and Vulcan. OMG LET ME SHIP YOU TWO ADORABLE PUPPIES. Plus they have the best banter in the world. I want to read the second two again now... Ah, if I had to answer the question "what's your guilty pleasure reading", it'd probably be rereading this series. I thoroughly enjoyed it and was only skimming a few pages because I wanted to get back to the dialogue. It's definitely the strongest part. The characters all just shine in this book. Like even the briefest mentions of Isabel she's already popping with personality, even before she comes over to make quiche. The only characters who lacked, actually (ironically) were Grace's two BFF: Olivia and Rachel. They felt like cookie cutters: the introvert and the extrovert, and Grace's need to make them stick...but she forgets that in her need for Sam's wolfish musk. But hey, it's Sam. It's probably understandable.WHY DID SAM GET SO FEW YEARS? Why can't life be pie and sweet shops?Okay, I need book #2 because I want Cole and Isabel's snark to start.

When I made the decision to reread Shiver and its successor, Linger, in preparation for this trilogy's conclusion, Forever, I honestly got little butterflies in my stomach just thinking about it. I originally read Shiver back in October of '09, and it hit me like nothing had before and nothing has matched it since. Shiver mixes some of the sweetest, most realistic and heartwarming characters with a wonderfully chilly and melancholy atmosphere and it is written with stunningly lyrical prose. If every author wrote like Stiefvater, I dare say I'd get nothing else done save for reading.What is there to say about Grace? I feel like if I call her strong it will seem unoriginal, but that is just what she is; there is really no other way to describe Grace. She holds it together even when Sam is emotionally in shambles. Even when hope seems as far away as ten light-years, she keeps her wits about her. I can't help but love Grace any more than Sam can.And there really is no other male character quite like Sam Roth; he is one of a kind. No other boy would turn away out of respect when a girl is scantily clad; no other boy would unabashedly sing to the mother of said girl; no other boy would treat a girl with as much respect as Sam shows for Grace. As I said, Sam is one of a kind. And he's definitely my kind of guy, if you know what I mean. (Oh! how I wish there were boys/men/male specimens like him in real life! But if wishes were horses, then beggars would ride. *sigh*)Moving on . . .Just as with anything that is popular, not all people will enjoy Shiver. I think some people read the synopsis and expect a werewolf blockbuster but that isn't what Shiver is; at its core, Shiver is a love story. The meat of the plot is simply Sam and Grace constantly fighting this physical transformation that is hell-bent on keeping them apart and stealing Sam's humanity.The only complexity in Shiver is the mystery behind what makes the humans turn into wolves - Stiefvater leaves the old-fashioned lore to the dogs and creates her own mythology I, personally, have never read any "werewolf" story like Stiefvater's, and that's a large portion of why I love this series so much. Rather thanyou getIn the old days werewolves were men that were forever ruining their clothes and having to buy new ones and all because of that blasted full moon. Stiefvater reimagines what makes these bitten but, in truth, innocent humans change form. And, to top that off, they don't get to keep changing. Eventually, they will stay in their wolf forms for the rest of their lives, thereby unwillingly having to give up their human life, loves, and wishes forever. By writing it this way, Stiefvater has taken what was once a horror story and made it something beautiful and sad. And this reader can't help but love that.This review would simply be too long if I added all of my favorite quotes (although you can read them all below), but if I had to choose just one it would be this:FAVORITE QUOTE: "I fell for her in summer, my lovely summer girlFrom summer she is made, my lovely summer girlI'd love to spend a winter with my lovely summer girlBut I'm never warm enough for my lovely summer girlIt's summer when she smiles, I'm laughing like a childIt's the summer of our lives; we'll contain it for a whileShe holds the heat, the breeze of summer in the circle ofher handI'd be happy with this summer if it's all we ever had.Between reading this and watching Becoming Jane the other night, my tear ducts are like dried sponges. And since I'll be reading Linger and Forever next, I felt that I should prepare myself; I had this sent to my house yesterday:Never let it be said that I was unprepared in life.I hear people say things about their favorites like, I've read this so many times I know all of the lines by heart. But I don't ever want it to be that way for me and this book; it is such a special read that I never want to read it and feel as if I've gotten all I can out of it. I want to start Shiver each time with the sense that it is both new and old to me, but always a favorite.___________________________________________My reviews of other titles in this series:Linger

Shiver is AMAZING!!!I brought this book at least 4 months or more ago and it just sat on my book shelve...Until i picked it up 2 days ago and then i couldn't put it down!!This has to be the best Y/A book i have read in ages,from the first page i was sucked into their wonderful story. Grace and Sam are AWESOME!!Their story told by both of them was perfect,i am so in love with Sam he was so Sweet,Caring and Sexy but i felt like he was real and i was right there with in the story... Grace is well Grace is the Best!!If i could give it more then 5 Start i so would!!!Ladies when you read this you will need some tissues!!!I can't stop thinking about this book,it was FANTASTIC!!!If you haven't read this book, You need to READ it!!Has to be my new Fave Book!! I can not wait to read Linger it is going to so good!!!

Here's how I imagine Stiefvater's meeting with the publishing house.Stiefvater: I want to write a book about a girl who falls in love with a vampire!Publisher: Sorry, Maggie. That's been done before. Read Twilight. It's terrible!Stiefvater: Oh. I want to write a book about a girl who falls in love with a zombie!Publisher: Sorry, Maggie. That's been done before. Read Generation Dead. It's terrible!Stiefvater: Oh. I want to write a book about a girl who falls in love with a werewolf!Publisher: Bingo!Months later...Stiefvater: I wrote a book about a girl who falls in love with a werewolf!Publisher: (reads a couple pages) Maggie, this is terrible! We'll take it!In what's becoming a distressing theme in young adult literature aimed at females, Stiefvater's Shiver follows a teenage girl who falls in love with a supernatural creature, and risks life and limb to be with him - oftentimes forgetting herself along the way. Love, after all, is something every girl needs. Truth is, though, I think Maggie Stiefvater might be a worse writer than Stephenie Meyer. Sure, Shiver lacks anything as truly awful as a vampire baseball game, but it does have a brooding protagonist (werewolf Sam) who writes unfathomably insipid lyrics to songs in his head. Check out this masterful sequence: She draws patterns on my face / These lines make shapes that can't replace / the version of me that I hold inside/ when lying with you, lying with you, lying with you. "I like your hair," she said. (p. 157)Here's the deal, everyone. I'm going to write my own teenage supernatural love story. It will be sexy! And scary! And totally realistic! And I'm going to write it RIGHT NOW. 'CABRAby JoeJessa woke up with a start. The pale sunlight filtered through the linen curtains, casting a soft glow on the chupacabra's skin, highlighting the sick, putty-colored spine. How had it gotten into her room? No matter. The glances that had passed between them in the desert earlier that day hadn't been in vain. Jessa swooned, casting a sultry look at the chupacabra. Her chupacabra. She reached out to it, and it ripped her fucking arm off.THE END

Forget everything you thought you knew about werewolves.Forget the full moon and silver bullets. Maggie Stiefvater's werewolves are different from any you've seen before. After being bitten, a werewolf changes erratically for a while, then settles into a seasonal cycle. Cold weather brings on a change to wolf form; warm weather returns the werewolf to human form. However, this cycle doesn't last forever. As the years pass, it takes more and more heat to trigger the change back to human, until one year the werewolf remains a wolf forever.Our heroine, Grace, was attacked by wolves as a child. Just before she was about to become lunch, one of the wolves intervened and saved her. Ever since, Grace has watched for "her" wolf in the woods each winter. And every summer, a golden-eyed boy named Sam watches Grace from afar, too shy to approach her. Then, when one of Grace's high school classmates is killed in another wolf attack, several of the local men take it upon themselves to rid the town of the beasts. This time it's Grace who helps Sam. Finally, the two have the chance to get to know one another. Their budding relationship is marred by one tragic truth: This is almost certainly Sam's last year as a human.Like Deirdre, the heroine of Lament, Grace is more "real" and well-rounded than many of the girls who populate YA paranormal romance. She's neither too perfect nor too wild, and she doesn't become subservient once her love interest appears on the scene. She's just an ordinary girl, compassionate and resourceful and caught in an unimaginable situation. The relationship between Grace and Sam is also refreshingly "real." They don't just fall in love because of the weird metaphysics that surround them. They bond over music and poetry and cooking and B-grade horror movies. The reader is left with the impression that, if only the looming metaphysical tragedy could be averted, they'd have a happy future together.Which, of course, makes the inexorable approach of winter incredibly poignant. I couldn't put Shiver down, wondering how Grace and Sam's story would end, and Stiefvater kept me hanging till the very last page.Shiver is written in vivid prose that engages all of the senses. Maggie Stiefvater does a great job of evoking the sight of a single spot of red against a sea of white, the sound of canine nails scratching at the deck outside Grace's house, and the smell of paper and ink in a bookstore on a warm summer day, making Shiver a fully immersive experience. I nearly forgot it was July here as I read; I could hear the winter winds howling.