Book Review :: Shiver, by Maggie Steifvater

Shiver by Maggie Stiefvater
Published by Scholastic Press
on August 1st 2009
Genres: Fantasy, Supernatural, Young Adult
Pages: 390
Goodreads

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.

Last updated on 19 January 2022

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I picked up Shiver, by Maggie Steifvater from the library the other week, in need of a werewolf story to interrupt my YA Dystopian novels that I’ve been reading pretty much constantly for the last ten books or so. You know how you can read a lot of something, and then just need a break from it for at least a book?

Like Jodi Picoult books. I love her novels – they are brilliant. But I can only read one at a time, and one in the space of about 20 books. I hope you know what I mean, otherwise, I’m just writing this for me and for no reason.   🙂

Shiver, by Maggie Steifvater is about werewolves. And a girl. The girl is Grace; the werewolf (well, one of them) is Sam. The story starts off as Grace remembering the time when she was 9 (?) and she was attacked by the wolves that live in the woods behind her house. She remembers the wolf that saved her too – and made the other wolves stay away from here – because of his amazing yellow eyes. And since that day, she watched him and looked out for him in the woods. Then one day, years later when she’s in high school, she meets a boy with yellow eyes. And, surprise surprise, it turns out to be the wolf that saved here, aka: Sam.

The story goes on, and obviously, Grace and Sam are in love and there are the crazy friends who ask too many questions and take too many photos, the older werewolf who is never around, the she-wolf is a little bit mad, and a new werewolf in the form of one of the students at Grace’s high school.

My thoughts on Shiver, by Maggie Steifvater

The story was okay. You’ll see I gave it a 3/5 stars. I liked it, but it wasn’t great – I don’t know if I’ll bother with the second one.

It’s written in first person, from Grace’s perspective, but it’s also written from Sam’s perspective, alternating chapters, much like in Crossed that I wrote about last week. I actually quite like this; it shows two sides of the same story, and how people view the same experiences. So that was fine.

What I didn’t really like were the characters. Grace is very un-phased by the fact that Sam changes into a wolf when it gets too cold (in this story, werewolves change from humans into wolves when it gets too cold – so they are wolves in winter, people in summer), or the fact that she herself was bitten in the past but never turned into a wolf. Sam is very loved struck by Grace, I think, and yet constantly worried about it being too cold, and whether he should stay away from Grace, and where his pack leader is, and why Grace’s parents are never home and blah blah blah. Not that interesting really.

My favourite character was actually a very minor character. She’s the one who is not a friend of either of them, but she’s at school with Grace and she’s not very nice, bit a bully perhaps. But when she gets more involved with the story I realised how much I liked her – she had character and spunk that the two main characters lacked, I thought. She was funny and a little bit of nut-case, and she acted appropriately ‘what-the-heck!?-ed’ out when she finds out about the whole werewolf thing. She is the best.

So, a little disappointed with it, but I think it had potential. I can’t decide if I like the idea that there may be a cure for werewolf-ism (I won’t say if there is or not), but it was kinda nice to see a different take on werewolves and how they turn from human to wolf. It’s amazing the imaginations some people have!!

Have you read Shiver, by Maggie Steifvater? What did you think?