Linger

Linger
Maggie Stiefvater
360 pages
Publisher: Scholastic
Source: Bought for myself
★★★★☆

As you know, I don't generally say much in my reviews of books that are second or more in a series.  On the other hand, I can't remember reviewing Shiver on either of my blogs, though I remember reviewing it in some capacity.  Sorry, I guess my mind is getting old and feeble.  Anyway, I read Shiver in June and mailed it off to some lucky PaperBackSwap wish-lister, so I don't have it to flip through in front of me, but I do remember thinking it was a pretty good story, though I was not impressed with those who brag about reading it all in one day because it's published by Scholastic.  I mumbled something or another like that.  Don't worry, I have since gotten over myself and as you can tell I throughly enjoy YA fiction now.

Now here I am finished with the second novel, Linger, and anticipating the third and final novel, Forever, because I thought Linger was better than Shiver.  Grace and Sam are in love, but I think their love is ridiculous.  Who loves in that "I love you more, no I love you more" way in reality?  Maybe it's just been too long for me to remember what it was like to be "in love" when I was seventeen.

Anyway, aside from youthful kind of love, Shiver has a lot of offer.  Foremost, I love how the characters have depth. Sam is unbelieving in what he has become; Cole is so tortured that he never wants to be human again; Grace is going through some strange changes;  Isabel is struggling to come to terms with her brother's death.  It's all good stuff.  One of the great things Stiefvater does to convey the depth of her characters is to switch the point of view of the story between her characters.  Even sometimes in the same chapter the point of view will flip flop between Isabel and Cole for example, so we're getting both points of view on one situation at the same time.

Second, the plot.  Oh, the plot.  I don't want to spoil, but I love how things came full circle in this book, which ended on a cliffhanger.  But I have to wait until at least July to find out how it ends.  It was good read for sure, except for the font color.  The next book's cover is read and I hope the font won't also be red - that won't be fun to read.