Shiver: A Modest Review

Fact: you don't become a distance runner just by entering the first marathon you find. Likewise, you don't just get into the writing world by picking up a pen and putting it to paper. Everybody has to start with the basics. You learn to run properly before you learn to race, and you tend to read a helluva lot before you decide that you want to get into the writing business. This practice will even follow you into the career, if this is the path you choose – you need to keep reading to broaden your focus in the same way a racer needs to keep running to stay in shape.

And this is where things get competitive.

Bonus: this image can also be used to summarize how all of us feel during finals week!

I'm willing to wager that a decent portion of young, aspiring authors have their sights set on the young adult fiction genre. Understandable – an equally decent portion of us have been raised on books like the Harry Potter series. Back to the point: I am one of these people! More importantly, though, I'm learning that there are a lot of awesome YA authors playing the field already.

Case in point: Maggie Stiefvater.

She's adorable. Also, she is totally signing  copies of Shiver.

Stiefvater's written a lot of YA novels in the last few years – most recently, The Raven Boys. However, for sentimentality's sake, I am focusing on her first novel, Shiver. This is the first book in a trilogy by the same name, and it deals with – wait for it! – werewolves. And romance. And angst.

No, I don't care how badly Twilight ruined the whole supernatural romance deal for you. I went through that phase too. I survived it; you can too. Now listen up.

Props to the designer of the cover art.

In terms of difficulty, Shiver is not an especially hard read. (For me, this was particularly beneficial, as I had literally just graduated high school about two weeks before buying my copy, and my brain was still recovering from being puréed by finals.) Shiver follows the tale of Grace Brisbane, a girl with an unfortunate interest in the vilified pack of wolves lurking around her hometown. One wolf in particular has an equally unfortunate interest in her.

This wolf's name is Sam Roth, and it soon becomes apparent that the strange black wolf that's appeared to her so often through the years is a lot more than the murdering mongrel that the town is making he and his pack out to be.

Okay, I'll bite: I really don't have anything bad to say about the book. Maybe it's just sentimental bias talking, but even with a topic that's slowly being run into the ground these days – monsters falling for “ordinary girls,” angsty teenage romance, etc. – Stiefvater still manages to deliver the story in a pretty compelling manner. I'd recommend it to anybody who's looking into this particular facet of the YA genre. Basic read or not, it's still pretty enjoyable if this is your thing.

Besides, clichés be damned – anything's gotta be better than Twilight, right?

"PUCKER UP OR I'LL EAT YOUR GODDAMN FACE."