Last summer my sister read Shiver. I, being my usual nosy self, decided to read the first few chapters. I enjoyed them very much, so about a week ago I decided to get Shiver from the library. Shiver is a love story of a teenage werewolf and a regular teenage girl. The girl, Grace, was attacked by werewolves when she was 11. The boy, Sam, was there. He could smell the blood and was going crazy with hunger, but did not join his fellow werewolves. Instead he stood above her, just watching her, not moving or screaming out for help. She just laid there on the snow-covered ground, her arms crossed over her chest. And then, he stopped the other werewolves.
The story then jumps to present day. Grace is 17 and has never had a boyfriend. Everyday she watches the werewolves that are in the woods in her backyard. She stares at the lonely tire swing that she was dragged off of by the wolves 6 years ago. That fall she meets Sam. All the men in town are out in the wood hunting the wolves because a local boy, Jack Culpeper, has been killed by the wolves (although he really is just a werewolf now). Grace knows that her wolf is out there and may get killed. She runs through the woods trying to find her wolf but is stopped by a police officer. As she walks up the steps onto her back porch, she sees Sam. He is lying on the snow covered porch in his human form, bleeding. Grace gets him inside and then drives him to the hospital. Within 30 minutes the wound has stopped bleeding, but Sam says he can’t stay in the hospital. Grace borrows a pair of scrubs and they sneak out of the hospital.
Sam explains to Grace how the werewolf thing works. When it is cold they are wolves, and when it is warm they are human. He also explains how you become a werewolf, you have to be bitten by a werewolf. Grace realizes that she should be a werewolf because when she was 11 she was attacked by werewolves. She thinks she didn’t become a werewolf because a month or two after the attack her father accidentally left her in the car in stifling heat. Grace thinks the overwhelming heat got rid of the werewolf. Grace realizes that Sam has nowhere to stay but in her room at her house. She says that her parents won’t find out because they are never home.
As the months pass, Sam is trying his hardest not to change in the cold winter weather, but it is becoming unbearable. On a cold night, Grace and Sam get into a car crash. A tree crashes through the windshield and Sam can’t stand the cold; he can’t control his inner wolf. He leaps out the door, shifting in midair.
After the accident Sam, as a wolf, is not seen for a week or two, and Grace is missing him like crazy. The book ends with Sam showing up in Grace’s backyard in his human form in the freezing cold snow.
The point of view in this story is very interesting. It is told in first person, but it switches from Sam telling the story to Grace telling the story with each chapter. Shiver is part of a trilogy (Shiver, Linger, Forever). I cannot wait to read the rest!
