Shiver by Maggie Stiefvater
Reviewed by Bronte
Shiver – good title and supposed to be a Twilightish book, same genre and stuff but with better writing. After reading this book, I agree, the writing is much better than Stephanie Meyer has managed in her Twilight books but the story is so similar in some aspects to Twilight that it seems repetitive. The girls Bella and Grace are very similar, what they like and how they act, the boys are also very similar but the people in Shiver are more realistic in that they have flaws.
This is the story of Grace and Sam with separate chapters told from their personal views. I can't really tell the different personalities from the chapters. They like different things, but the writing is the same for both which doesn't allow them to have separate personalities.
The best thing about this book is the take on werewolves, I really like it when authors come up with their own superpowers or myths related to well known mystic beasts, like vampires or werewolves. The worst thing about this book is the similarity to Twilight, in the whole normal girl meets magical boy in high school romance storyline.
The setting is interesting, maybe just to me because I had a friend who moved to Minnesota and since I hadn't read a book before this that took place in Minnesota. The story is a little boring but understandable until the end when it detours from explaining things and makes a miracle happen without any background information about how or why this miracle happened. I liked this book's storyline but maybe the writing was a little past tense, which didn't lead to staying up late to finish the book. Since this book is a high school romance, a genre the boys who read avoid like the plague, this book would be most appreciated by young teenagers (14-15).
Posted by at April 9, 2010 03:13 PM