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Short disclaimer about how I am an now an adult reading a YA book that came out during the height of the Twilight phenomenon...
I absolutely love character driven stories. Give me a good character driven story over something chock full of action, politics, etc. any day. Shiver is something I would definitely classify as character driven because literally nothing else happens in this story.
Let's just ignore for a minute that the main female character has a major lady boner for an actual wolf (who she only later finds out is actually a dude), but this whole romantic story felt rushed and more than a little unhinged. When she does actually find out that this dog she's been lusting over is actually a dude, there is literally no surprise or shock or any other normal reaction. Both characters act like this is perfectly normal and expected. They act like they literally have known each other forever, even though in the established lore the wolves think differently and remember differently in their wolf bodies versus their human bodies, so, like, how does he remember that he's crazy infatuated with her? Idk, there's probably a rational argument that could be made, but it just felt weird.
There were also no real stakes or tension. The only real driving tension is that Sam, the main male character, won't be turning into a human again after this winter, and so they just basically struggle to keep him warm all the time.
Okay....... and?
I love character driven stories, but there has to be some sort of tension to drive it forward. I will say that it was nice to have a very soft, sensitive dude instead of these very distant, pseudo-bad boys that were everywhere during this time. But that wasn't enough to safe the integrity of the story for me.
I do like Stiefvater's other books, but this really did not hold me. I'm starting the second book (a. because I have it and b. because I want to see if anything actually happens in the next installment), but without any sort of excitement.
I absolutely love character driven stories. Give me a good character driven story over something chock full of action, politics, etc. any day. Shiver is something I would definitely classify as character driven because literally nothing else happens in this story.
Let's just ignore for a minute that the main female character has a major lady boner for an actual wolf (who she only later finds out is actually a dude), but this whole romantic story felt rushed and more than a little unhinged. When she does actually find out that this dog she's been lusting over is actually a dude, there is literally no surprise or shock or any other normal reaction. Both characters act like this is perfectly normal and expected. They act like they literally have known each other forever, even though in the established lore the wolves think differently and remember differently in their wolf bodies versus their human bodies, so, like, how does he remember that he's crazy infatuated with her? Idk, there's probably a rational argument that could be made, but it just felt weird.
There were also no real stakes or tension. The only real driving tension is that Sam, the main male character, won't be turning into a human again after this winter, and so they just basically struggle to keep him warm all the time.
Okay....... and?
I love character driven stories, but there has to be some sort of tension to drive it forward. I will say that it was nice to have a very soft, sensitive dude instead of these very distant, pseudo-bad boys that were everywhere during this time. But that wasn't enough to safe the integrity of the story for me.
I do like Stiefvater's other books, but this really did not hold me. I'm starting the second book (a. because I have it and b. because I want to see if anything actually happens in the next installment), but without any sort of excitement.