Friday, February 4, 2011

Shiver review

This book was heavily recommended to me by my friend Amy, aka the Simple Little Bookworm (see her review of it here). Since I had read and intensely enjoyed The Book Thief, another novel Amy said I would like, I decided to give "Shiver" a try.

Getting into it, I knew right off the bat that it would remind me a lot of the Twilight Saga, because they were both paranormal teen romance novels. I only hoped that this story would be a better one. Trust me. It was. ^_^

Here are the few key differences that makes Shiver the better read:

~There are only werewolves. No vampires whatsoever! This was a very good thing, in my case. (I've been on Team Jacob from the start. ^_~)
~The book is written so that almost every other chapter is narrated either by the human girl, Grace, and the werewolf boy, Sam. Well, most of it is from Grace's view, but at least not all of it, as was Bella's case.
~There aren't any love triangles. So the story is ultra-simple. Grace loves Sam. Sam loves Grace. That's it. It's like what might have happened if Bella had never fallen in love with Edward, only Jacob.

Besides these things, the similarities to Twilight were pretty strong, but this book somehow seemed a lot better written. The characters seemed more like real, multi-dimensional, good-hearted people. The rules of this fictional world (some people can turn into werewolves, but only when the temperature gets cold) were acceptable, with some suspension-of-belief.

Most of all, the 2 lead characters, Grace and Sam, were characters that I truly wanted to see get together. They treated each other like equals, even though one of them obviously had super-natural powers that the other didn't. (This is unlike the relationship in Twilight, where Bella basically treats Edward like a god, and she doesn't understand why he's in love with her, because she has low self-esteem.)

I'm not sure what else I can say without giving away the story, but suffice it to say that I really liked it. I hear that this is only the first book in the Wolves of Mercy Falls trilogy, though I believe Shiver does quite well, even on it's own. (Except the ending felt strangely anti-climactic. O,o) Well, perhaps I'll read the other two in the series, Linger and Forever, when the latter comes out this July.

Thanks, Amy. 2 for 2, you have steered me in the right direction of a good read. What do you have for me next? ^_~
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btw, I also wanted you guys to check out this new song I wrote on my poetry blog. Tell me what you think. *_*

4 comments:

Rainy said...

I'm not really into all these paranormal romances all that much. I read them to get an understanding how "normal" teens these days think (I'm not normal, by the way =P ) Anywyas it seems to be turning into a trend, and they're quite fun to bash on most occasions. I just find romance to be a very argumentive subject, ask anyone.

Cool cover though. I love werewolfs. Remus Lupin forever! Haha. But I think I might have seen this book in the library somewhere. The cover is so familiar.

If you want to read another P.R. genre book, I suggest Hush Hush because it was an interesting, though sometimes annoying and disagreeable, read. Really, I'm suggesting its sequel. It had a nice twist that made the books worth some of the time spent on it. I'm sure you'd find it somewhat enjoyable. A little more than I did, perhaps.

S.L. Bookworm said...

Eeee! So glad you liked it. :) I just finished Linger, so I should be posting about that soon.

As for new recommendations, I'm in the middle of GIRL PARTS now. I can't stop laughing. I let you know if I can give it a full two thumbs up when I'm done. (Cross your fingers!)

Magenta said...

Ah, I've already read "Girl Parts", actually. =P I really didn't get a good impression from that book, like, AT ALL. You can see my review over here:

http://bettinasbooks2009.blogspot.com/2010/09/girl-parts-by-john-m-cusick.html

(Remember to check out all the other books I read, too)

S.L. Bookworm said...

We'll have to agree to disagree here. :) I'm so smitten with that book, even though I agree the ending was a bit abrupt.