Linger [Audio]

by Maggie Stiefvater

Read by: Jenna Lamia as Grace, Pierce Cravens as Sam, Dan Bittner as Cole, and Emma Galvin as Isabel

First paragraph:

• grace •

This is the story of a boy who used to be a wolf and a girl who was becoming one.

Just a few months ago, it was Sam who was the mythical creature. His was the disease we couldn’t cure. His was the good-bye that meant the most. He had the body that was a mystery, too strange and wonderful and terrifying to comprehend.

But now it is spring. With the heat, the remaining wolves will soon be falling out of their wolf pelts and back into their human bodies. Sam stays Sam, and Cole stays Cole, and it’s only me who’s not firmly in my own skin.

Review: This is the second book in The Wolves of Mercy Falls series. This review will have some spoilers for the first book so stop reading if you plan on reading Shiver any time soon.

Shiver leaves off just after Isabel's brother dies, her dad goes on a wolf hunt, Sam is cured and Grace is madly in love.

Linger, book two, delves into the psych of Grace, Sam, Isabel and Cole.

Cole is one of the new wolves that Beck brought back from Canada. He was ready to end his life and thought becoming a wolf, void of thought and emotion was a good way to do that.

Isabel is struggling with her family life as her parents spend the days arguing or mourning the loss of their son and she's left feeling as though his death is her fault.

Grace is dealing with her own problems. She feels wrong but she doesn't know what is happening to herself. All she knows for certain is that she still has Sam and Sam didn't turn when the weather turned cold.

And then there's Sam. Each time he feels the cold he's afraid his life will revert to what it used to be. He's happy being a boy, a man, a human. He never wants to go back to the thoughtless, emotionless life of the wolf again and he'd do almost anything to keep it that way.

I listened to this book on a drive home. There was a different reader for each perspective so that helped me keep track of who was who but I think it would have been more confusing if I'd been reading. I feel like the switching back and forth from one character to another keeps you from really getting to know any of the characters. I don't like it when a book has more than one or two perspectives it's written from.

The readers did an alright job but it wasn't my favorite book reading ever. I'd probably rate the reading around a 3 and a half.

As for the story itself ... it's interesting but it's not really a page turner. If I'd been reading it I probably would have taken a while to get through it. In fact, I started reading this book several months ago but didn't finish it before it was due back at the library. I think it's just the different perspectives that keeps you from becoming invested. You might get to an interesting part but then it's going to switch to another person's thoughts and story and you won't read about whatever it was you were interested in for another 30 pages.

Don't get me wrong, it's a decent enough book, especially if you like reading about werewolves but it won't make my top 10, or even 50, books ever read.

Finally, there is one more book in this series, Forever. It's due to be released on July 12, 2011.

Click here for Maggie Stiefvater's Shiver series website.