Fair warning to whoever's reading this; this is going to be one of those "it's-not-you-it's-me" kinds of spiel. I'll be frank, alright? Shiver is the kind of book that leaves you with two options: you likey or you don't likey. In my case, it's the latter.

Now, before I move on to the actual reviewing of the content and all the other elements, let me tell you the story of how I stumbled upon this innocent read. Six words: The school library's 'popular books' bookshelf. I vow to never trust that section of the library ever again. Don't get me started on the cool-looking cover. It's misleading, okay? It's misleading.

Er, the paragraph above isn't exactly relevant so I'm striking it all out. Right, back to business.

I'll admit that the writing style isn't exactly intolerably horrendous. It's quite the opposite, really. The words flowed like bee-you-tea-fool poetry. (Hah. See what I did there? But I digress.) The vivid imagery, the gorgeous setting which deserves an A+, the majority of the plot, the grammar, the heroine named Grace, they were all pretty good. The thing is, the prose-style of this book felt a bit forced to me. It seemed to me that dear Maggie Stiefvater was trying so hard to come up with a compelling, lyrical, fictional piece. (To be fair, I'm sure there are people out there who were into how Shiver was written but it didn't work for me in this one.) Anyway, so there, my first comment on this book: trying too hard.

Now, since I've already mentioned Grace, I'll expound on her. Alright. Grace, from what I can tell in this book, is a pretty tolerable character. I wouldn't say that she's likable - because she isn't, in my opinion - but there was no instance of me hating her. A good sign? Perhaps.

In Shiver, she's a teenage girl who's fascinated by the wolves (the yellow-eyed one in particular) near her house ever since the day she survived a wolf attack. Never mind the fact that most teenage girls would probably be scared shitless of wolves after experiencing that kind of trauma. I mean, I can deal with the whole 'curious as to why the yellow-eyed one saved me' scenario but what I just couldn't comprehend was how Grace managed to be... attracted to Sam... in wolf form.

Then again, whatever, that isn't my main problem with her anyway. My biggest dilemma with supposedly curious, headstrong, quick-witted, spunky, independent Grace is the fact that I couldn't connect to her at all. Perhaps it's because I've never experienced falling in love with a dog before... or something to that extent. Whatever the reason is, I just didn't care about her life, her problems, her experiences and basically anything that involved her. (And honestly, being disconnected with the main character is a huge, unforgivable no-no.)

Moreover, I had a lot of mixed feelings about Sam. At first, I cooed at the fact that he plays the guitar. (I mean, seriously, musicians are my undoing.) At first, I was giddy that he isn't all brooding, bipolar, dominating and abusive... unlike Daniel Grigori. At first, I was relieved - let me type that in all caps: RELIEVED - that finally, a sweet, caring, sensitive guy is going to get the girl this time. At first, I felt sympathy towards him. What with the whole 'shifting-to-a-wolf-whenever-it-gets-too-cold' thing. However, all those 'at firsts' Avada Kedavra-ed themselves the moment I realized that Samuel (or whatever his full name is) is actually a Samantha. It's as if Stiefvater forgot to give him a penis - forgive me for my crudeness but there's no other way to explain his overly feminine demeanor. There were instances when I literally groaned, "Grow a pair. Please." whenever Sam decides that he "looks like a blimp" in a particular coat, thinks things like, "I don't even know what they are. Probably a million calories." or compares his self to "a leaky womb".

Isabel/Isabella/Isa-whatever-her-name-is-I-don't-really-give-a-flying-duck is probably the best character there. Yep, she is so amazing I can't even remember her name. Which says a lot about the rest of the characters. Kidding aside, Isabel (let's assume that that's her name) shows the most development and growth in this book. In the beginning, she was, to simply put, one of the Mean Girls - beautiful, blonde and bitchy. I'll admit that I wasn't a huge fan of her at first; in fact, I barely noticed her... but as the story progressed, Isabel became a real spitfire, a doting sister and a determined heroine - which is just wrong since Grace is the heroine. Nevertheless, she is, by far, my favorite character in this series. (Not saying that I'll actually finish this series. [b:Linger|6654313|Linger (The Wolves of Mercy Falls, #2)|Maggie Stiefvater|http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1292482391s/6654313.jpg|6848948] is more tormenting, in my humble opinion.)

The pacing of this book is excruciatingly sluggish. (There was this instance wherein I stopped reading and paid attention to - wait for it - Chemistry class. I preferred Chemistry over this book. Not that there's anything wrong with that class but come on, people.)

I think that's one of the main reasons why I just couldn't lose myself in Shiver. It felt like Stiefvater was constantly droning on and on and on. That said, I couldn't find it in my heart to enjoy the plot either. In fact, sometimes, I wasn't even aware of what was happening.

From what I can remember though, the plot is... fairly okay: Girl is attacked by wolves. Yellow-eyed wolf rescues girl from death without a particular reason. Girl is in awe and is curious about yellow-eyed wolf. Yellow-eyed wolf shares the same interest with girl. Girl learns that her wolf is actually a teenage boy. Girl and wolf boy fall in love. Girl and wolf boy attempt to find a cure. Girl and wolf boy unravel mysteries and go on adventures while dragging Isabel along. - There's nothing particularly vomit-inducing if you think about it, right? Right. I guess what really didn't work for me is the delivery. As I already mentioned, I just didn't care. At all.

I do, however, applaud Miss Stiefvater for the hauntingly beautiful setting and for her talent in twisting words into carefully crafted sentences. (Although I can't say the same for her song lyrics. I mean, I'm not a composer, but I've dabbled a bit in writing lyrics and the content of Sam's songs are just... too poetic. There's a fine line between 'vague' and 'what-drug-is-this-boy-on'. But whatever.)

In my opinion, Shiver is bordering between 1.5 and 2 stars. I didn't necessarily vehemently dislike it, but I enjoyed an estimate of nothing - if that makes sense. That said, I do think that there's an audience out there who would be delighted and enjoy giving this series a shot. In this case, I'm just not one of them.