Shiver

Summary:  Shiver is not your typical werewolf story. It is a teenage love story with a twist. The werewolves don't change into savage beasts during a full moon, it happens when the temperatures become too cold for them to stay human. Grace, the young protagonist, was bitten by a wolf when she was young but never changed. We never really figure out why she never changed. It could be that her father left her in a hot car or that she got really sick with the flu right after with a super high fever. Sam, Grace's wolf, her protector and savior also tells part of the story from his point of view. Sam's parents were cruel to him, trying to kill him in a bath tub when Beck supposedly swoops in to save him.  

During the story one of her classmates, Jack Culpepper is "killed" by the wolves.  He wasn't a very nice human but he is even more mean as a wolf. His sister, Isabel, discovers the truth and wants to cure him, Sam and Grace's friend, Olivia. Jack bit Olivia changing her too. She thinks it was Grace's high fever that was the cure, so she comes up with the idea of giving each of them bacterial meningitis, a deadly disease. Jack takes his dose, but dies 3 days later.  Olivia decides she wants to become a wolf and refuses her dose and Sam takes his dose but becomes a wolf right in the middle of it and runs off. We are left with Sam and Grace embracing as humans at the end of the story, obviously with sequels already written there is more to this story.

Stiefvater, M. (2009). Shiver. New York: Scholastic Press.

Commentary:  The strengths of this book are that even though it is a love story that not many boys can usually relate to, it has both boy and girl protagonists and tells the story from both of their point of view so boys can relate to it as well.  After watching many author interviews, I found out that she came from a family with 5 children who were all musically inclined. She changed her name when she was 16 years old.  She was originally Heidi Hummel.  She wore black and goth before it was considered cool. She was homeschooled from 6th grade on. Despite that she was not around a hoard of teenagers growing up she really knows the teenage heart and soul and how to reach into their mind and reach them through her stories.  Grace has parents that don't pay very close attention to her so Sam is basically able to live in her room for weeks without her parents even noticing.  This is probably something that most teens would probably believe happens because they believe no one ever notices them but the truth is they could probably never get away with that.

Connections:  This book would be a Fiction, low fantasy novel being that it is based in a small town very similar to another city that we would see in Minnesota. Although it mainly focused on the characters and their development and struggle, the events that take place as werewolves would not really happen making it a fictional story. This story tugs at my heart, wanting Sam to survive as a human for Grace but I also don't want him to lose his family connection with Beck and Ulrich and his wolf family. I enjoyed they way this book went from one narrator, Grace, and then switched to Sam's point of view in the next chapter.  It was also interesting how it told the temperature for each chapter so a lot of the time left you thinking, "ok this is the chapter where he will change, its too cold." But then he wouldn't. It was intriguing. 


Link to the author's page Maggie Stiefvater

Book Trailer

YASLA Interview with Maggie Stiefvater

Interview with Maggie Stiefvater (this interview references her trilogy Raven Cycle) but helps us to get to know this author.

National Writers Series:  An Evening with Maggie Stiefvater

Shiver Study Guide
I found a lot of fans asking if Shiver would be made into a movie and here is what I found on Maggie Stiefvater's Tumblr Page.