Shiver - Maggie Stiefvater

   Title: Shiver
   Series: Mercy Falls, Book 1
   Author: Maggie Stiefvater

   Publisher: Scholastic Press
   Year Published: 2009
   Pages: 390

“I could still smell her on my fur. It clung to me, a memory of another world.

I was drunk with it, with the scent of her. I'd got too close.

The smell of summer on her skin, the half-recalled cadence of her voice, the sensation of her fingers on my fur. Every bit of me sang with the memory of her closeness.

Too close. I couldn't stay away.

Shiver is hardly a new book, and I've seen it around for a while, knowing it was quite popular, but I never quite seemed to get to it. This week, however, while getting to know the new batch of year 7 readers, one girl borrowed the last in the trilogy and talked to me about how much she had enjoyed it. That was all the prompting I needed to tick this one off my list.

Shiver is the first book in a trilogy by Maggie Stiefvater. It is a love story between a girl named Grace and a boy named Sam - but Sam is no ordinary boy. Every year, during winter with the temperature drops, Sam becomes a wolf. A wolf among a pack of wolves who live in the forest behind Grace's house. The very same pack that attacked Grace when she was a little girl. This is a story about growing up, about love, about danger, and about sacrifice.

fanart by connorose

Grace is seventeen years old, very practical and responsible. She looks after herself, her family, and her friends. She likes numbers and things that make sense. Sam, on the other hand, is dreamy and creative. Eighteen years old, he has spent a large portion of his life shifting back and forth between being a wolf and a human. He likes music, and poetry, and above all, Grace.

I particularly enjoyed the way this story was told. These days, first person narratives that jump back and forth chapter to chapter between characters are very much the norm. But unlike some other YA romances in this format, the voices where clear and and distinctive, even when the pattern of changes shifted. (To be fair, I did listen to an audiobook which made this impossible to miss, but I still feel the characters were clearly separated).

fanart by finncollins

I found Stiefvater quite lyrical in her writing, very fond of descriptive passages romanticised imagery. That being said, overall the novel wasn't overly sappy or cheesy, due in no small part to the character of Grace being relatively practical and stoic. 

I would like to say this book was a must read, as I truly found it pleasant and, at places, even a beautiful novel - but it's not groundbreaking. At it's core it's a paranomal YA romance, like the many written at the same time. It is certainly well written, and has rounded enough characters that I'm quite happy to suggest it to a wide range of students at school, but it doesn't have anything all that new.

fanart by dearbrigan

Recommended Age Group:

I'll be steering to the 15+ crowd based on the age of the characters and some hints towards sex (though nothing at all graphic). It would be acceptable for mature readers a little younger if you felt they were capable. All the covers I've seen have been very girl oriented, but it has it's share of action and quite a believable male voice, so it might be worth extending a suggestion to some of the boys also.

Content Warnings:

- some mention of sex (not graphic or lewd)

- some violence

- trigger warning for suicide backstory

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Eleanor and Park - Rainbow Rowell

Title: Eleanor and Park
Author: Rainbow Rowell
Published: 2013
Pages: 325
First Line: XTC was no good for drowning out the morons at the back of the bus.

Holding Eleanor's hand was like holding a butterfly. Or a heartbeat. Like holding something complete, and completely alive.

I try to keep up with the popular books of the moment - particularly those that are being read by my students. As such, when one of the senior girls from school asked me to read Eleanor and Park, a book that was already on my radar, I immediately went searching for it. I was delighted to find that both of my public libraries held a copy, but, sadly, both copies were unavailable. And so they remained. Not being a fan of the way my libraries organise their holding system, I often just try to luck it out and get it on or near the return date, but this book eluded me for over two months. Not to worry, however, for surely this just meant it was being well loved and it would be worth the wait.

Thankfully it really was. A quick stationary dart into town for work bought me right next to the library so I was able to duck in and pick it up. Then I made my mistake, I stupidly read a chapter while waiting in line at the circulation desk. Oh no. I was hooked pretty much off the bat. However was I to go back to work and actually work with this book sitting on my desk? Somehow I managed it with only a few distracting moments, but as soon as I got home it was time for the lounge and blankets and tea until that last page was read. I haven't read a book in one sitting like that for a long time, so that should be high praise in and of itself. But! Onto the book itself!

I wasn't too aware of the plot line of Eleanor and Park before I picked it up. I knew it was about first love, I knew there was talk of an upcoming movie, and I knew it was big with the Nerdfighter crowd (who have never steered me wrong before), but as for the actual details, I had none.

The me that's me right now is yours. Always.

Eleanor Douglas and Park Sheridan the protagonists of this novel, are both social misfits to varying degrees - Eleanor because she simply can't fit it, and Park in spite of it. Meeting on the bus on Eleanor's first day, the pair, despite the eternal and unwavering politics of a school bus, move from a place of isolation to true friendship and, ultimately, into the sweet clutches of first love.

More than the sweet simplicity of schoolyard romance, however, Eleanor and Park's relationship finds itself strained, and threatened, by Eleanor's home life - which is, by all accounts, far from ideal. With Eleanor struggling to stay afloat in a situation no sixteen year old should have to deal with, Park stands as a terrifying yet stable beacon of hope.

I've heard the book marketed as a read for any adult who wishes to remember the joys of first loves, and Rowell certainly delivers on this promise. She manages to deliver all the innocent joy of discovery and the bitter strains of heartache without falling into the saccharine or clichéd. She employees an uneven distribution of perspective, switching between Eleanor and Park even within chapters, but instead of being distracting or disjointed it only serves to further the sense of anticipation and joy between them. I feel as though using format to reflect emotion is often a difficult feat to pull off naturally, but Rowell champions it here.

I really felt myself getting swept away in the emotions of this book. Often when I read a romance between teen characters I can enjoy the plot, or appreciate the characters, but I often find the romantic development simplistic to the point of disbelief. The romance between Eleanor and Park develops just as quickly, to be sure, but I felt a truth to their emotions, and an authenticity to Rowell's words that completely won me over.

I would definitely recommend this to any YA lover! Particularly any John Green fans. 5/5

Read if you enjoyed:

• Looking for Alaska - John Green
• Paper Towns - John Green
• Life in Outer Space - Melissa Keil

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Christmas Tales

Let it Snow John Green, Maureen Johnson and Lauren Myracle
published 2008; 352 pages

It was the night before Christmas.

Well to be precise, it was the afternoon before Christmas. But before I take you into the beating heart of the action, let’s get one thing out of the way. I know from experience that if it comes up later, it will distract you so much that you won’t be able to concentrate on anything else I tell you.

My name is Jubilee Dougal. Take a moment and let it sink in. (1)

This seems to be my month for short stories; Let it Snow is a collection of three interconnecting Christmas stories – novellas, actually. What I enjoyed most about the format of this book is that the small details from one story, interesting but inconsequential, become critical plot points in later stories.

Author John Green (Looking for Alaska), Maureen Johnson (13 Little Blue Envelopes), and Lauren Myracle (TTYL) set their stories during a blizzard in a small town. Their individual voices work well together – so much so that it wouldn’t take a lot to convince me that all three were written by the same author (a book like James Roy’s Town).

I’ll admit that I picked this book up simply because I’m a John Green fan (very much so), but the book as a whole was fabulous, and I’ll definitely be looking out for books by both Myracle and Johnson. All three authors weave together romance and humour in an entirely charming way. These are characters whom you might have known in your own youth. 4/5

Challenges

• 100+ Reading Challenge
• A-Z Challenge
• Twenty-Ten Challenge

The Other Boleyn Girl

The Other Boleyn Girl
Philippa Boleyn
published 2001; pages 532

The tent for the queen and her ladies was hung in cherry-red and white silk, the queen was wearing a cherry gown to match and she looked young and rosy in the bright colour. I was in green, the gown I had worn at the Shrove Tuesday masque when the king singled me out from all the others. The colour made my hair glow more golden and my eyes shone. I stood beside the queen’s chair and knew that any man looking from her to me would think that she was a fine woman, but old enough to be my mother, while I was a woman of only fourteen, a woman ready to fall in love, a woman ready to feel desire, a precocious woman, a flowering girl. (28)

 

Life at the royal court is not as easy or as glamorous as one might think. Behind the words of courtly love, exchanged between handsome noblemen and beautifully gowned ladies, are a multitude of schemes all designed with a singular purpose: to gain power.

In Tudor England, in the court of King Henry this is no different. Determined to profit from the King’s desperate desire to produce a male heir (not to mention his eye for the ladies), the prominent Boleyn family do all they can to put one of their own in the path of the King. Young Mary Boleyn, beautiful and somewhat naive to the harsher realities of court, is the one chosen. Coached and manipulated by her family and their unquenchable greed and ambition, Mary catches the eye of her king.

Until her sister Anne comes to court. Her more intelligent, more seductive – more ambitious – sister. And suddenly Mary finds herself set aside, becoming ‘the other Boleyn girl’, forced to aide her sister in procuring all she sacrificed for.

I’ll be honest right from the start: I absolutely adored The Other Boleyn Girl. The intrigue, the scheming, the oh-so-polite betrayals of the court – all of it was written so well that I simply couldn’t put the book down.

Everyone knows the tale – not to mention fate - of Anne Boleyn, second queen to King Henry VIII, but this is not her story. This is the story of Mary Boleyn, the younger sister abused and then thrown aside in the name of family duty. And this balance between Mary’s ownership of the story and Anne’s inherent capacity to dominate and control every situation is an interesting one.

Historical accuracy was, I felt, given its appropriate respect before giving way to the embellishments of fiction. It included enough history for those with no background knowledge to follow the story without turning it into an incomprehensible political piece. Having said that, I was left with the feeling of needing to know more. As I said earlier, this is Mary’s story – and once her time at court is over so too is the story.

Highly recommended to lovers of historical fiction or period romance. 5/5

 

Challenges

• 100+ Reading Challenge
• A-Z Challenge
• Twenty-Ten Challenge

I do believe in fairies…

Tithe: A Modern Faerie Tale Holly Black
331 pages; published 2002

A man was sprawled in the mud only a few steps from her, clutching a curved sword in one hand. It shone like a sliver of moonlight in the hazy dark. Long pewter hair, plastered wetly to his neck, framed a face that was long and full of sharp angles. Rivulets of rain ran over the jointed black armour he wore. His other hand was at his heart, clutching a branch that jutted from his chest. The rain there was tinted pink with blood.

“Was it you, girl? … [have you] come to finish me off?” (24-5)

Kaye’s mum is a unknown rockstar-wannabe, her grandmother disapproves of everything, and she hasn’t been to school in years. Her life couldn’t be less magical. It is a far cry from the happy life she enjoyed as a small child, surrounded by her fairy and pixie friends, even if no one else could see them.

When Kaye and her mother move back to town, however, her little friends are nowhere to be seen, and life just isn’t the same without them. And the friends who are around aren’t quite the same either. Even the people she meets are a little unusual. Roiben, the young man she meets in the woods is… well, he’s not human for starters.

But as it turns out, neither is Kaye.

Having proof that fairies are real makes life different but no less hard when Kaye finds herself the target in a battle of good and evil in the world of faerie.

It is so good to finally read a book that has been on your tbr list for so long… not so good when it’s the first in a trilogy and you don’t have the next two books (stupid, stupid). Despite that little hiccup however, it was still a pretty good read – hard to make a final judgment until I read the rest of the series.

I was a little bugged to read another ‘normal-girl-loves-supernatural-boy’ story (was written before Twilight) but got over it pretty quick because there were a few spins on it – namely that the girl herself isn’t exactly normal.

For the most part, Tithe was a good first book, it set up the world well – a somewhat intimidating world, I might add. Kaye was an interesting character, damaged enough to make you very sympathetic toward her, but curious enough to make her interesting. My only real concern was the language; it was a little strong in the first part the novel which, while somewhat confronting (and may need a warning for some readers), worked quite well within the context of the world they were setting up. 3.5/5

I want to live before I die...

Before I DieJenny Downham
326 pages; published 2007

A thought stabs up, growing from my toes and ripping through me, until it stifles everything else and becomes the only thing I’m thinking. It fills me up, like a silent scream, I’ve been ill for so long, puffed up and sick, with patchy skin, flaky fingernails, disappearing hair and a feeling of nausea that permeates to my bones. It’s not fair. I don’t want to die like this, not before I’ve been lived properly. It seems so clear to me. I feel almost hopeful, which is mad. I want to live before I die. It’s the only thing that makes sense. (54)

Tessa has cancer. That scary c-word that equals hospitals, unwanted sympathy and the fear of death. And that’s exactly what’s in store for Tessa.

But Tess is only sixteen, and there are certain things she wants to experience before she dies. A list of the top ten is formed: Sex. Drugs. Driving a Car. Fame… Love. With her father so determined to find a cure for his undeniably terminally ill daughter, he is not prepared to help her meet her dying list. Best friend and wild child Zoey stands up, however, perfectly suited to the task ahead.

Tessa has comes to terms with her fate, as much as possible, but what she doesn’t expect is that the things one wants most in the world can shift right before your eyes, and that even if you get them, it may not be what you thought.

I’ll admit that the first few chapters of this book made me cringe. A young girl is dying and the first two things she wants are sex and drugs. And then her best friend arranges one night stands with perfect strangers, one of which spends a fair amount of time being referred to as “The Stoner Boy”. I almost closed the book and picked out a new one.

However I’m very glad that I didn’t. What I originally thought of as shallow, somewhat clichéd writing morphed, chapter by chapter, into a cleverly shaped maturation of the main character.

There were many things about this book that I simply loved: the utterly real portrayal of a father desperate to save his daughter, and struggling to do it all alone; the honest fear and curiosity of Cal, her younger brother…

Downham’s writing just got more and more touching as the book progressed, to the point where I was literally in tears. A surprisingly beautiful book. 4/5

Other Reviews

• Becky's Book Reviews

I want a fairy!

How to Ditch Your Fairy
Justine Larbelestier
298 pages; published 2008

Rochelle gets a clothes-shopping fairy and is always well attired; I get a parking fairy and always smell faintly of petrol. How fair is that? […] why couldn’t I have, I don’t know, a good-hair fairy? Or, not even that doos, a loose-change-finding fairy. Lots of people have that fairy. Rochelle’s dad, Sandra’s cousin, Mum’s best friend’s sister. I’ll wholly settle for a loose-change fairy. (14)

Okay, I’ll fess up, I’m not so much a sucker for book covers but for quirky titles. So when I saw this one reviewed on a blog a while ago it immediately caught my attention. And when it was offered up for review, I quickly put my name down.

Fourteen year old Charlie lives in New Avalon, the best place in the entire world (at least according to its inhabitants). New Avaloners are just more interesting that everyone else… mostly due to their possession of fairies.

There are fairies for every one and every thing. Charlie’s friend Rochelle has a ‘clothes-finding fairy’, star of the water-polo team Danders Anders has a ‘grip fairy’, and Fiorenze, the most hated girl in school (at least by the other girls) has a fairy which makes every boy her age fall in love with her.

And what kind of fairy does Charlie have? A parking fairy. How ‘undoos’ (uncool) is that? For Charlie, it’s the worst thing imaginable. She’s constantly being begged, borrowed, or outright kidnapped by so-called friends and family to find good parking spots. So Charlie decides to save her sanity, and in the process gain a better fairy, by boycotting all transport. Surely lack of use will bore her fairy into leaving. She soon starts to learn, however, that it isn’t quite as easy as all that.

I really liked the idea behind this book, with people’s inherent talents and fortunes – both good and bad – translated into fairies. However, I’ve got to say that I had some issues with the book. I feel it had the potential to go a lot further than it did. Author Justine Larbelestier started to touch on several themes only to leave them hanging or gloss them over.

What was written was reasonably well done – with one exception. Larbelestier seems to have gone to great lengths to incorporate the slang and phrases of her teenage characters but, rather than using current vernacular, has made up a language unique to New Avalon. While I can appreciate the attempt, I found it very jarring, and having to refer to the glossary simply to translate words for ‘cool’, ‘hideous’, and ‘beautiful’ was intrusive to the novel.

Overall, it was a nice light read, but not necessarily one I’d go out of my way to recommend. 3/5

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"I will let you down..."

This Lullaby
Sarah Dessen
379 pgs; pub 2002


If I did the maths with Dexter, on paper it was perfect. We’d come in well under the three-month mark, with me leaving for college just as the shine was wearing off. But the problem was that Dexter wasn’t cooperating. If my theories of relationships were plotted geographically, Dexter wasn’t even left of centre or far out in right field. He was on another map altogether, rapidly approaching the distant corner and headed into the unknown. (40)


Remy, eighteen and obsessively anal, is counting down the days until she leaves home for college. This is her last summer at home and she’s doing what she can to make it a clean split: she breaks up with Jerk Jonathan, she cleans and organises her room, and she finalises the details for her mother’s fifth marriage. She’s all set to go until Dexter comes crashing into her life.

Convinced that they are simply meant to be together, Dexter is determined to win the heart of Remy Starr. Unfortunately for him, he’s everything Remy KNEW she never wanted: gangly, messy and, worst of all, a musician. And she has “strict rules about musicians.”

Suddenly her no-strings summer is a lot more complicated and Remy has to face the truth that she may actually have real feelings for the boy, that it is actually possible to love.

Last year I read Sarah Dessen’s Lock and Key after having heard/read people rave about her, so when I saw This Lullaby at our local library I thought I’d give her another go. I would have to say that I preferred Lock and Key as an overall read, but that I really felt for Remy.

In the author’s note, Dessen wrote that of all her narrators, Remy is her favourite, and it’s understandable why. Remy is smart about everything except love – where she couldn’t be more wrong. She’s cynical before her time and this has affected how she lives her entire life. This Lullaby is, above all, a book about love – what it is, and what we want it to be. 3.5/5

Challenges: 100+ Books, A-Z Books,

Support Your Library, Read and Review

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Lock and Key
Sarah Dessen
422 pages; published 2008

“And finally,” Jamie said as he pushed the door open, “we come to the main event. Your room.”

I was braced for pink. Ruffles or quilting, or maybe even appliqué. Which was probably kind of unfair, but then again, I didn’t know my sister anymore, much less her decorating style. With total strangers, it had been my policy to expect the worst. Usually they – and those you know best, for that matter – did not disappoint. (1)

When Ruby’s mother disappears she doesn’t exactly panic. Her mother’s been gone before, and always returned sooner or later. Besides, she’s nearly eighteen, plenty old enough to look after herself, right?

Perhaps not.

Coming to the attention of social services, the courts place the seventeen year old Ruby under the care of her elder sister Cora and her husband Jamie. It has been ten long years since she has seen her sister, and the last thing Ruby wants is to be dependant on anyone, let alone the emotionally distant Cora (whom she still blames for abandoning her so long ago) and the super cheery, extra-enthusiastic Jamie. Their impressive house in an exclusive neighbourhood is a far cry from the lifestyle she is used too – and she doesn’t intend to stick around too long.

However, her plans for escape don’t go precisely to plan and, before she knows it, Ruby is entangled in this new life. So used to being alone, Ruby is now surrounded by people she not only comes to depend on, but who depend on her – Nate, her oh-so-perfect swimmer neighbour; Harriet, her control-freak boss; and Roscoe, a dog with a multitude of issues. And with her mother now missing from her life, the only remaining link to her former world is the cold key to her old house hanging around her neck.

But her new life and those who inhabit it aren’t all as shiny and perfect as they might seem. There are now people to disappoint, people to support, and even people to protect… and perhaps, a unlikely as it may seen, it is Ruby who holds the key to unlocking happiness in all their lives.

I’ve seen reviews for Sarah Dessen books pop up here and there and I got the impression that she was quite a popular YA author. Lock and Key is the first of her books that I’ve read but based on this book I’d have to say that that the reputation was probably deserved.

I liked Ruby as a main character – I felt that she had the perfect blend of almost-eighteen-arrogance and battered little girl fragility. Her interactions with those around her as she makes the change from isolation to being part of a family were genuine and moving – even humorous in parts. 4/5

Purchase Lock and Key here.

Other Reviews

• The Book Nut
• Trisha at Trisha's Book Blog

Memoirs of a Teenage Amnesiac

Gabrielle Zevin

288 pages, published 2007

In high school, no one knows who they are, right? Well in her book Memoirs of a Teenage Amnesiac, Gabrielle Zevin takes this truism one step further. When Naomi Porter finds herself waking up in a hospital bed, stranger at her side, she truly has no idea how she got there - or who she is.

After the seventeen year old Naomi takes a tumble down the school stairs, she loses all her her memories after the age of twelve - she has no idea how old she is (though she "feels" older), doesn't know why her mother is not there to comfort her, and the boy sitting next to her bed - who on earth is he?

Thrown back into the dramas of high school, the usual teen identity crisis is made a little more difficult when Naomi has to relearn everything she's already struggled to attain. Suddenly her boyfriend isn't quite so appealing, her life-consuming work on the school yearbook a puzzle and, in a book that is "above all a love story", the question of love and loyalty a difficult one to answer. 4/5

Atonement

Ian McEwan

368 pages, published 2003

As Atonement was the selection for our first bookclub meeting, I was quite eager to read it. (I think we wer all excited little nerdlings!)

Seen and told through the eyes of Briony Tallis, a young aspiring writer, Atonement revolves around the love story of Briony's older sister Cecilia and her beau Robbie. However, the story - and the romance - suffers server complications wen Briony seriously mitakes what she witnesses. Romance turns to violence, mistakes become crimes, and the lovers are harshly separated.

I felt that the book dragged in places. Though beautifully written in places, and technically amazing throughout, the story was slow to get into. 4/5

Catch a Falling Star...

Stardust
Neil Gaimen
198 pages, published 1999

Neil Gaimen is an author I have been intending to read for some time but had never quite managed to get to, so when the new Stardust movie came out, I thought I’d take the opportunity to get in and read the book before I saw the movie.

A lovely book, that read more like a fairy tale than I had anticipated, Stardust tells the story of a young man who sets off into the magical world beyond the village confines to retrieve a fallen star to impress the young woman he wishes to love. Of course, as is want with fairy tales, all is complicated when the star herself assures him that she has no intentions of being retrieved. 5/5