Linger by Maggie Steifvater

***This WILL contain spoilers from the first book in the series Shiver, if you haven't read it yet, you can click HERE for a review of Shiver.***

Release Date: July 20, 2010
Publisher: Scholastic Press
Age Group: Young Adult
Pages: 362
Overall:

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 Isabel, who already lost her brother to the wolves...and is nonetheless drawn to Cole. At turns harrowing and euphoric, Linger is a spellbinding love story that explores both sides of love--the light and the dark, the warm and the cold--in a way you will never forget.

Let me first say that I didn't re-read Shiver before I started Linger, which was probably a mistake, seeing as I barely remembered the main character's names and the basic plot line. So sorry if that effects this review. :) It also feels weird to review a second book in the series, when I didn't write the first review, but me and J have close to the same opinion, which is a really great thing, can you imagine if we had differing opinions? It would be interesting reading that review and then reading this one and being like what? Anyway, to the review.

In Shiver, Sam and Grace found each other, in Linger they fight to stay together. I love the way Maggie Steifvater writes her books, switching points of view, it makes it really easy to go deep into many different characters heads. Linger added two more characters other than just Grace and Sam, two characters that I actually found a lot more interesting. Isabel is coping with the death of her brother Jack, her voice was interesting, very thoughtful, she was an interesting character to unfold because we learned about her in Shiver but we get to be inside her head in Linger. Finally Cole, the voice of his segments was amazing! I lived for when he would talk again, being a new wolf, who actually wanted to be a wolf, he was dealing with his past and all he wanted to do was forget about his problems, which he could do by becoming a wolf. Unfourtunatly, he can't stay in his wolf form. It was interesting watching him grow up in a sense. I'll definitely be looking forward to more of him in the final book Forever.

The plot line kept me entertained, but for some reason all the parts with Sam and Grace bored me until the very end. I would find myself wanting to skip chapters until the other characters spoke, just because it got into repetative courses of this is why I love you... over and over again... it got boring. The overlying plot line however, was amazing, in this novel, you got to learn more about every character's past, which (from what I can remember) you don't really learn in Shiver. Also, I think it's cool how the novel sort of slowly picks up speed until by the very end I was FLYING through pages. I also liked that there wasn't a definite "bad guy" so it was interesting watching them fight something that wasn't really there. However, one thing I did miss was my phychotic wolf counterpart Shelby. I wish you got to see more of her being crazy :)

Stiefvater's writing is, as always, phenominal. She is so in depth with her characters and settings and plot's and feelings. That you wonder how she could fit all of that into a book that you hold in your hand.

Linger was an exceptional read and one of the only series where I liked the second book better than the first. I am waiting with open arms for the final installment, Forever.

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Ps. Amanda said she wanted to do a review because some of our opinions are different, so when she does, you can find it HERE :)

xoxo,