Saxton Reads! & Reviews

**reviewed by bas bleu

"Shiver" Left me out in the Cold!

While admittedly not a fan of the Twilight series, I was intrigued by the numerous positive reviews of Maggie Stiefvater’s Shiver, another paranormal YA novel, and decided to give it a try. Shiver tells the story from the points of view of its two main characters. Seventeen-year-old Grace is inexplicably drawn to the wolves who gather in the woods outside her Minnesota home each winter. She is particularly attracted to one wolf with mesmerizing yellow eyes, and thinks it might be the same wolf that rescued her from an attack by a pack of wolves when she was younger. Sam, the second protagonist, appears in two forms. In warmer weather, he is human, and during the cold months of the year, Sam reverts to his wolf form. When Grace encounters Sam in his human form, complete with the same amazing eyes, they form an immediate bond (think wolves and how they mate for life…). Grace realizes that Sam is a werewolf and the yellow-eyed wolf from her past. The plot revolves around their struggle to keep Sam in his human form so that they can be together. I am a hard sell when it comes to fantasy writing. It took me forever to jump on the bandwagon and read the Harry Potter books, and as far as the Twilight series is concerned, you already know how I feel about that. I thought I might be outgrowing my aversion to fantasy when I fell hard for Suzanne Collins’s The Hunger Games and Catching Fire, but I now believe that I like those books because they are masterfully written and totally engaging. The fantasy element is secondary. There were some things I liked about Shiver. Some of the writing was lyrical, for example, and this particular passage totally drew me in: “Even in the bookstore, which was air-conditioned, the heat crept in around the door and came in through the big picture windows in waves…. Behind the counter, I slouched on my stool in the sun and sucked in the summer as if I could hold every drop of it inside of me. 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.” (p. 8). Anyone who loves words and books has to be enchanted by that description. And then Stiefvater spoils it by writing something like this: “I was not a wolf, but I wasn’t Sam yet, either. I was a leaking womb bulging with the promise of conscious thoughts…” (p. 63). Come on, now. Do you know any men who actually think or talk like that? Would you even want to? Ewwwww…. Furthermore, plot issues abound: 1. Grace’s parents (as well as the other parents in the novel) are completely oblivious and totally detached from their children. If you were a parent, wouldn’t you notice if your daughter had a young man living in your house and sleeping in her bed? For weeks? 2. One of the secondary teenaged characters, Isabel, is written as a vapid, Paris Hilton-like stereotype, complete with a “handbag Chihuahua that she dressed to match her outfits.” (p. 32). Yet later in the story, Isabel illegally enters a clinic and draws vials of blood from a patient there, which she then injects into the werewolves. The author has Isabel report, “Yes, I know how to draw blood! Doesn’t everyone?” (p. 352). Evidently, this explanation is supposed to be convincing to the readers, but instead it feels like a mere contrivance. 3. One of the biggest issues with the plot is with the wolves themselves. When in their human form, many of them are intelligent and successful. Why, then, do they continue living in frigid Minnesota? Have they never seriously considered a more temperate climate? Passing mention is made of an ill-fated relocation of several werewolves to Texas, where an open door and a waft of air-conditioning spell doom for one of them. The weak plotting makes Shiver far-fetched even for paranormal fiction. It disrupts the narrative flow and is a sign (to me, at least) of laziness on the part of the author. And don’t even get me started on the egregious liberties Steifvater took with the ending. The characters test a hypothetical “cure” involving a contagious, genuine, and oftentimes fatal infection. I found this to be simply irresponsible on the part of both the author and the publisher. I do not want to include any “spoilers” here, but if you read it, you will perhaps have the same reaction. Shiver is another novel whose reviews are all over the place. It might be a good choice for a teen reading group. I could definitely envision a lively discussion!