Linger Review

Book Name: Linger (The Wolves of Mercy Falls)
Author/Publisher/Date published: Maggie Stiefvater/Scholastic Press/July 13th 2010
Pages: 362
Rating: 3 1/2 stars (:
Synopsis:
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 Isabelle, 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.


Review


Linger was a beautiful sequel to Shiver, that came with an unexpected ending. Stiefvater, in my own opinion, is an author that takes her time when it comes to the creation of her plot. By reading Shiver and Linger, I have come to find that she is a very creative and romantic writer, but her books can get a little "slow" in certain areas.


*Spoiler- if you have not read Shiver do not highlight this sentence*
---> I also love how she focused on Sam getting his life back on track now that he has become human again, and that she puts a lot of responsibility on him now that Beck is gone.


Stiefvater starts to put a great deal of emphasis on how lost Sam truly is. It seems that no matter what path Sam takes something is always going to come at him and catch him by surprise. The fact that he keeps going really proves what a strong character he is. Grace on the other hand has always been a bit of a, for lack of a better word, push over to me. She tries to please her parents and doesn't convey her feelings of neglect to them. So I love that Striefvater gave her more of a backbone in Linger. It lets readers know that no matter who they are, no one can control you unless you let them.


She -Stiefvater- does a wonderful job tying in the mundane actions of Grace and Sam's lives into the story. She starts to write about Sam's music career and I think she develops their relationship a lot. She made them feel very solid. Which was nice because usually everything is constantly rocky with relationships in YA romance books. I also found it refreshing that there was no love triangle. I don't know why I'm sure it's just because they're so over-used. It keeps the book closer to reality while still giving her plenty of room to write her fairytale love story. Although I did love the ending, it really got me wondering about what Stiefvater was going to do in the next book. Will Grace and Sam have a happy ending in the third book? Will another complication arise with the wolf pack? What does Sam plan on doing about his music career? What will happen between Cole and Isabelle, will he be able to find a cure? So many questions, but will they all be answered in the third book of The Wolves of Mercy Falls series? Well, we all have to wait for that answer.






XoXo~Baylee~