Review - Shiver by Maggie Stiefvater

Better late than never I suppose. Seeing as how I never put a review up for the book.

the cold.
Grace has spent years watching the wolves in the woods behind her house. One yellow-eyed wolf—her wolf—watches back. He feels deeply familiar to her, but she doesn't know why.

the heat.
Sam has lived two lives. As a wolf, he keeps the silent company of the girl he loves. And then, for a short time each year, he is human, never daring to talk to Grace...until now.

the shiver.
For Grace and Sam, love has always been kept at a distance. But once it's spoken, it cannot be denied. Sam must fight to stay human—and Grace must fight to keep him—even if it means taking on the scars of the past, the fragility of the present, and the impossibility of the future.

When she was a little girl, Grace was bitten by wolves. A fact that slams to the forefront of everyone's mind when popular jock, Jack Culpeper, is "killed" in the woods.

Sam works in a bookstore, The Crooked Shelf, during the summer. When the temperature drops for the year though, his time as a human is all but forgotten. For months, he watches Grace from the woods... as a wolf.

Her wolf.

Fate in the form of a gunshot wound brings Sam and Grace together at last. But can they stay that way?

Grace loses a friend to the winter and finds an ally in an unexpected place when Jack's sister, Isabel, figures out what's going on.

Shiver, by Maggie Stiefvater, was a whole new ball of wax for me. A unique and interesting take on the werewolf story. I love how independent Grace was and how completely awful Isabel could be. But, like every onion, Isabel had layers. Layers that get peeled away as the story goes on.

Sam. Sam the tragic and hopeless romantic who only has eyes for Grace. The one thing he manages to hold on to. Even in the winter.

It's a beautiful and suspenseful romance. Absolutely heartbreaking at times. In the end, it had me crying. And books don't usually have that effect on me. I loved the story. All the passion and devotion, the nailbiting and worrying. It's a story I will keep with me forever.

I highly recommend this book, and the rest in the series, to everyone.