Written by: Maggie Stiefvater
Genre: YA/Paranormal Romance
Pages: 360 (Hardcover)
Series: Book Two of Three
The premise: ganked from BN.com: In Maggie Stiefvater's Shiver, Grace and Sam found each other. Now, in Linger, they must fight to be together. For Grace, this means defying her parents and keeping a very dangerous secret about her own well-being. For Sam, this means grappling with his werewolf past . . . and figuring out a way to survive into the future. Add into the mix a new wolf named Cole, whose own past has the potential to destroy the whole pack. And Isabel, who already lost her brother to the wolves . . . and is nonetheless drawn to Cole.
At turns harrowing and euphoric, Linger is a spellbinding love story that explores both sides of love - the light and the dark, the warm and the cold - in a way you will never forget.
My Rating
Must Have: I'm surprised at just how much more I enjoyed this book than the start of the trilogy. There's more conflict, and there's less focus on the gooeyness of the love story, which--while said love story is disgustingly sweet in a good way--is a GOOD THING. It feels like there's more at stake in this book, and Stiefvater had me wanting the trilogy's final chapter, Forever, a good ten minutes before I finished Linger, so it's just not fair that I have to wait a whole other year. But all of this, it's good. With Shiver, I was ambivalent about reading the sequel. With Linger, I want it ASAP. And while some people might not care for the new POVs that take the focus away from Grace and Sam, it's a welcome thing in the larger scheme of things. Add to that complex character dynamics/relationships and more world-building regarding the werewolves (which I didn't see coming at all), and I was very pleased with this installment. Of course, I don't recommend starting here if you haven't read Shiver, but know that books one and two are quite different from each other while retaining a certain central beauty.
Review style: I'm getting horribly behind on reviews, so I'm afraid I'm not going to be as thorough as I otherwise might be. However, I want to talk about how this book improves on the predecessor (especially in terms of werewolf culture) as well as some of the interesting decisions the author makes that work to correct some of the "faults" of book one. We've got new POV character that I want to discuss, and I want to examine the bigger picture of this story as well as the character relationships. To say they're interesting is an understatement. There will be spoilers at the full review in my LJ, so if you're interested, please click the link below. As always, comments and discussion are most welcome.
REVIEW: Maggie Stiefvater's LINGER
Happy Reading!
AND
Book club selections @
calico_reaction. Hop on over! We'd love to have you!August: Palimpsest by Catherynne M. Valente
September: So Long Been Dreaming edited by Nalo Hopkinson
October: Feed by Mira Grant