Summary from Goodreads:
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 really wanted to like Shiver. I came across so many great reviews for it so when I began reading it, I went in with high expectations. I don’t think it’s a bad thing to start reading a book with high expectations, whether or not the author can deliver it is the question. In short, I did not like Shiver at all. I found it dull, waffling and monotonous.
Grace, the heroine, is obsessed with a wolf she first saw when she was being attacked when she was eleven. Before Grace realises that her wolf is actually a human being- I couldn’t understand why she would have so much love for a wolf. Grace’s emotions upon finding out that Sam was in actual fact a human didn’t feel very realistic to me- she would have been much more shocked/scared/angry/confused than she was.
Shiver made me very frustrated. One of the major reasons was that Grace’s parents were very unrealistic in my opinion. I know there must be parents out there who don’t take interest in their children’s lives, but come on- not noticing a strange boy sleeping in the same bed as their daughter (in their house) for weeks on end? That takes a lot of ignorance and stupidity.
Furthermore, when her parents do find out that she has a boyfriend; they didn’t even ask anything about him as normal parents would. For example, they didn’t ask what school he goes, how old he is, where he works, anything. That was totally ridiculous.
Also, one of the worst things was how disrespectful Grace was to her parents. The author went a long way to present Grace’s parents as dumb (not knowing about Sam) and forgetful (leaving Grace locked in a car when she was really young). The second one cannot be excused.
The way Grace was so condescending to her parents really annoyed me. She ranted on and on about how she did all the cooking, how her parents wouldn’t be able to function without her, how they were so stupid. Actually, it was very reminiscent of Bella from Twilight. But what about Grace? I think Grace needs to take a long, hard look in the mirror. All she ever cared about in the book was Sam.
I’m seeing a trend in YA books where the parents are shown as ignorant/stupid. As I mentioned previously, I noticed it in Twilight. I have no idea why this is happening. Is it a reflection of society?
I didn’t feel any emotional attachment to Grace. I found her cold, hard and unemotional. I didn’t get any real clue as to why Sam was so enraptured with her and I didn’t know why Grace was so obsessed with someone who was very opposite to her.
Grace was very stoic, closed off and robotic whereas Sam was somewhat more open about his feelings and was very emotional. Sam kept remembering things that happened in the past, whereas I wanted to know what was going to happen now-in the story. When I was reading it, I kept imagining that Sam was a girl. His narrating voice sounded exactly like Grace’s which put me off.
The constant swapping of POVs annoyed me. I think only a few authors can do it very well. Instead of speeding along the plot, it slowed it down. Not much happened in Shiver. There was a lack of plot. 400 pages were filled with waffle, repetition and changes in narrator.
In most of the book what happened was: Grace mooned over Sam, Sam mooned over Grace, Grace and Sam slept in Grace’s bed, Grace was angry at her parents for an unknown reason, Grace and Sam slept, Grace smelt Sam’s armpit and proclaimed it smelt very Sam-like in there!, Grace and Sam read, Sam drove Grace to school Grace and Sam slept. Her parents didn’t know.
I wanted to know more about wolves.
I didn’t find it sweet that Sam drove Grace through freezing temperatures to go to a sweet shop for their date. I was expecting something amazing, not a sweet shop. I didn’t find Grace and Sam at all interesting. I willed myself to finish off the book. Most of the interesting action happened to secondary characters like Jack and Grace’s friend. I would have been more interested in reading about them as some action would have happened.
At the end, Jack died very abruptly and I didn’t even get a reason why he died and Sam didn’t. The ending was a bit of a cheat in that respect and I won’t be reading the next book to find out if there was an explanation for it because I don’t want to wade through 400 more pages of sleeping, eating and driving to get what will most likely be a half-explanation. There were just too many unanswered questions in Shiver. Why hasn't Grace changed? Why did Jack die? Why didn't Sam?
Overall, I did not like Shiver at all and will not be reading the sequel, Linger, which is already out.
Book Rating: 1/5
Cover: 4/5
Concept: 1/5
This review is part of September Spectacular Reading Challenge at The Thoughts of a Book Junky.
No comments:
Post a Comment