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. 

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.

My Thoughts:

I was very happy to find that Linger picked up right after Shiver, where we find Sam dealing with the fact that he will no longer change but stuggling to adjust to this fact.  Sam still struggles with being in the cold, in terms of the fact that he still worries that he might change at any moment.  Grace is faced with a struggle of her own, she is not feeling well at all and feels deep down that her body is trying to change even though she never has.  Everything breaks loose which Grace peaks a fever in the middle of the night and Grace’s parents find Sam sleeping in her room.  They have fought so hard to be together and now her parents are going to try to keep them apart.

Isabelle has been feeding the wolves and find a new wolf who has suddenly changed when he should not in her house.  She knows she shouldn’t be but she is drawn to him and this brings out even more the pain she faces daily from watching her brother die even though she was trying to save him.  Sam survived but why him?

I enjoyed the story.  I did find Grace very whiny in this book.  I did not feel like I was draw into the story as well as I was with Shiver, which was a bit disappointing for me.  I do really enjoy Maggie Stiefvater’s writing style and the town that she has created.  The story continuity was very strong between these first two books.  I wish that there was more of a story line this felt a bit like filler to me.  Even with all of this, I liked Sam a lot better in Linger, he is coming into himself and seems to be so much more grounded.  I am looking forward to finding out where Forever will take Grace and Sam.  Everything has changed.  There has been a total flip in circumstances.

My Rating:

4 Penguins.  While I did not enjoy as much as Shiver, Linger moved this story forward.