Linger by maggie stiefvater

What a beautiful cover, holding together a breath-taking story.  I read it quickly over the course of one weekend, snuggled in my bed.  Now I have to wait a long time for Forever to arrive-it will seem, well, like forever!

Good Reads 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.

My thoughts:

     I had no idea what Stiefvater had planned for Grace and Sam in this second installment but I hoped it wasn't just lovey stuff.  It wasn't and in fact the direction it took was so perfect because it involved Grace's parents, who were never around much in Shiver.  Her parents, in classic parental form, decide to ban Sam from her life, which doesn't work. Never does.  All of this could be quite cheesy love stuff but in Stiefvater's hands it is brilliantly written.  Extremely poetic and one chapter leads to another and another until you've devoured it all.
     The story, like Shiver, is told in alternating point-of-view between Grace, Sam, Cole and Isabelle, changing sometimes right in the middle of a chapter and this worked really well.   I despised Cole's character and fell more in love with Isabelle, making their attraction an interesting combination.  Grace and Sam weathered their storms, but not easily and I'm now quite anxious to read Forever, #3 in The Wolves of Mercy Falls.  As a former Minnesotan I can relate to the setting and think she's portrayed the cold, the seasons and the landscape so well.  If you haven't picked up this series yet-I highly recommend it, even if your not from Minnesota. 

Random Quote: " Later, I thought of the things I could have added to the list of resolutions, things I'd wanted back before I realized what being a wolf meant for my future.  Things like Write a novel and Find a band and Get a degree in obscure poetry in translation and Travel the world.  It felt indulgent and fanciful to be considering those things now after reminding myself for so long that they were impossible."  (27-Sam)


Other reviews:

See Michelle Read reviews it and has some good points.

Read Presenting Lenore's review.