Book Review: Shiver

Shiver by Maggie Stiefvater was my attempted fourth read of the year. I've read The Raven Boys and wanted to read something else from Stiefvater, so Shiver it was. This did not wind up being the right book for me.

This review was updated May 15th, 2023.

Rating: DNF

Buy Shiver.

Blurb from Amazon:

"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:

I had really hoped to enjoy this book, but my feelings about it are complicated, at best.

The thing is, I like Maggie Stiefvater's writing. It's very readable and she's quite good at building up setting within a piece. There are a number of lines that just stand out:

As the hours crept by, the afternoon sunlight bleached all the books on the shelves to pale, gilded versions of themselves and warmed the paper and ink inside the covers so that the smell of unread words hung in the air.

And from that perspective, I could (probably) happily read everything she's written.

However, as you may have noticed, this book was a DNF.

Truthfully, I may have just picked this book up at the wrong time—but not by just a matter of months. If I had read Shiver ten years ago, I might have loved it. But, at this point, this book just feels too young for me.

At somewhere around thirty-percent mark, I stopped reading because I honestly couldn't find the drive to continue. One of the "antagonist" characters was becoming ridiculous. For reasons unknown, the main character seemed to be making less and less intelligent choices as the story progressed. In fact, I couldn't understand most of the decisions made throughout this book. And I found that I couldn't relate to the characters' mindsets. In the end, I think my interest in recognizing the reasons behind everything just ... vanished.

This book is probably the right fit for a lot of people. It's relatively fun and compelling. There's also something rather nostalgic about it. But I think my time reading high-school-setting, paranormal books from this era might be over. The enjoyment has just gone out of it, for me.

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