BR; Shiver - Maggie Stiefvater

Grace is fascinated by the wolves in the woods behind her house; one yellow-eyed wolf in particular. Every winter, she watches him but every summer, he disappears. Sam leads two lives. In winter he stays in the frozen woods, with the protection of the pack.n summer, he has a few precious months to be human . . . until the cold makes him shift back again. When Grace and Sam finally meet they realize they can't bear to be apart. But as winter nears, Sam must fight to stay human - or risk losing himself, and Grace, for ever

(all cozy from reading in bed hehe)

Upon starting to read this book, I was rather concerned. It started really fast, not neccessarilly with content, but switching from character to character. I couldn't get a grasp on them as people/beings, and was worried that the whole book would continue with these 2 page chapters. But I persisted through, and the chapters started to pan out. We see the story through the eyes of the two main protragonists, our love interests, Sam and Grace. I don't know whether I liked the fact that we knew from the off pretty much that Sam was a werewolf, however it did stop alot of unnecercary dialogue, and those brooding moments of discovery. The fact that Sam and Grace had a connection, whilst he was in his wolf form, made the easyness of their human relationship seem more legitamate...and the author didn't have to use things like 'it just felt so right'...because in a sense they already knew each other...and did infact love and care for each other in some way or another.
Grace is a stereotypical outcast, that most people reading books like this will probably relate to. But the shocker is that for once the main lead, was not some dark, mysterious stranger. He had a dark history with his parents, he had emotional depth...he was very humanised...perhaps to componsate for his wolf side. This was defiantley helped by the fact we saw alot of the book from Sams point of view, and thus could get inside both of the characters. The whole book was very centered on them. Even when other people were in the frame, it was still somehow them. Which isn't a bad thing at all, but something that really centered the story. They kept having these cutsey little moments, that made me want to find my fiance and just hold him.
This book was very much about humanity. About retaining humanity, and remaining true to oneself, for Sam in particular. It was about the little things, those small moments of beauty, we let pass us by everyday, but should cherish...moments without which we would be lost. As a reader I got sucked into these moments, and found myself comparing them to moments in my own life, and promising to make the most of them. There was a message in this book definatley, but it was still packed with action, emotion and a good, not too predictable plot. The book clearly left on a cliffhanger for book two, and now I find myself needing to know what happened. I hope in the second book, the author keeps the focus she did in Shiver, but also expands on the other characters inner depths. I will be purchasing the second book very soon I think.
I give this book a 7.5/10. You can tell from the onset this is not a work of Shakespeare or a literary masterpiece, but this gets point, because it's not pretending it is! A lovely, easy (if emotive) read. A great way to spend an afternoon or two.