Shiver by Maggie Stiefvater

Title: Shiver
Author: Maggie Stiefvater
ISBN#: 9780545123266 (hardcover), 9780545123273 (paperback)

the cold.
Grace has spent years watching the wolves in the woods behind her house. One yellow-eyed wolf—her wolf—watches back. He feels deeply familiar to her, but she doesn't know why.

the heat.
Sam has lived two lives. As a wolf, he keeps the silent company of the girl he loves. And then, for a short time each year, he is human, never daring to talk to Grace...until now.

the shiver.
For Grace and Sam, love has always been kept at a distance. But once it's spoken, it cannot be denied. Sam must fight to stay human—and Grace must fight to keep him—even if it means taking on the scars of the past, the fragility of the present, and the impossibility of the future. [summary from goodreads]

If there's anything I've learned about reading, it's that I should trust my friends' judgments more often than I do.  Since the whole vampire/werewolf takeover in the YA universe, I've tried to avoid books that fall into that category.  I honestly got tired of it and thought that what I had already read was sufficient enough for the time being.  The thing is, that's not really fair of me--so I decided to give this one a try, and picked it up on a whim when I was at the library.  Good.  Decision.

 I'd seen Shiver by Maggie Stiefvater on the shelves many times before, but never really thought to pick it up (despite the cool cover) because it had to do with werewolves.  As much as I like fantasy, sci-fi, and the like, I lean more towards the types of stories that deal with alternate universes and strange inventions with matching societies, rather than supernatural romance.  The thing about Shiver, though, is that it's conveyed in a way that is very different--I love when an author takes an idea that everyone has a certain expectation of and changes it so that it's something uniquely their own, and that is precisely what Maggie Stiefvater does in her novel.

I was surprised with how much I liked Shiver, with my bias and all.  Maggie's writing style was very engaging, but what I was really impressed with was the way that she could write something abstractly, but you can still understand it for exactly what it is.   I can always appreciate that kind of writing.

In Shiver, you read from the point of view of two narrators--Grace and Sam.  It was nice to be able to see into the minds of two characters, rather than one, which always seems to leave me wondering what's going on with everyone else.  I thought that Grace and Sam were nice to experience the novel with, as well (although, I have to admit, I loved reading from Sam's POV and always looked forward to his parts in the story).  Grace, as the female voice of the novel, was sort of a nice change for me--I like smart narrators.  I do.  What I liked more about Grace in that sense, though, was that she admittedly didn't know everything.  Sam would share poetry with her, and she may not have understood it, but it's not something that she kept from him in embarrassment.  That, I liked.  Far too often do I feel like I'm reading from the perspective of a super genius, and, honestly, it just gets boring after a while.

So, alright.  There are werewolves and there is romance.  The whole thing worked for me, even though I wasn't sure that it would.  Shiver kept me on the edge of my seat (just ask Sandy...  I was texting her like a mad woman as I got closer and closer to the ending--I needed to get my feelings out as I raced to the end of the book) and made me sigh, both at appropriate times.  Shiver was sweet (hello, candy store scene!), but I didn't feel like I was eating a bowl of sugar with my eyes.  Very sweet, but not overdone.  The fantasy element was pretty subtle, for the most part--I wasn't overwhelmed and found the world that I had immersed myself in was very believable.  The only thing that bothered me, really, was the lack of parental anything.  Grace's parents are just terrible!  Sam is in her house literally on a 24-hour basis and they never figure it out.  I'm just glad they're not mine...  You can't blame Grace's distaste for them.

This is probably one of the best books that I've read in a while.  Sometimes I just need a nice, romantic story, and this delivered.  I'm glad that this is a series--I can't wait to pick up the sequel!  :D

And, because I feel like this must be shared, here is a Shiver trailer made by the author herself, Maggie Stiefvater:

(Seriously... how talented is she?!  I'm in awe.)

In My Mailbox 1

In My Mailbox is a meme started by Kristi @ The Story Siren and inspired by Alea @ Pop Culture Junkie.  Blog on!

 I'd never been to a bookstore quite like Strand in NYC's Union Square.  It was awesome.

On this trip, I was able to get six books PLUS a reusable bag for under $30.  It was well worth the trip, as I found several things that I'd been wanting for a while!

The only thing that may have been better than actually getting the books was seeing Sandy's reaction when we got there.  She ran ahead of me and Cristina once the store was in sight and we were afraid we'd never see her again.  Word to the wise: do not come between this girl and her books! ;)

After spending a glorious 765286 hours there (okay, so I might be exaggerating a bit), we decided that it was time to pay for our little gems.

Here is what I picked up:

• The Shifter by Janice Hardy -- I've been eying this for months and I was thrilled to find it for only $4!
• Among the Hidden by Margaret Peterson Haddix -- the first in a series for younger readers.  I originally read the second book and never had the first one til now!
• Paper Towns by John Green -- Looking for Alaska got me hooked, so I knew that I couldn't pass this up.
• Sloppy Firsts and Second Helpings by Megan McCafferty -- I read these way back in high school after Sandy recommended them to me.  I was skeptical at first, but I absolutely loved them.  I'd been wanting to own them for years (especially with these covers), so how could I say no?!
• Ultra Maniac v. 3 by Wataru Yoshizumi --  checking out the manga section was sort of last-minute... Nearly everything was $2.50 and my 13-year-old self cried tears of joy inside.  This spectacular manga-ka also created one of my favorite manga series, Marmalade Boy.

 I was able to get all of those books as well as a bag for an unbelievable price, so I can't wait to go back and get more.  If you ever have the chance, definitely visit Strand Books.  It's completely worth it!

I also recently received some books from Sandy--we did a little exchange.  :D  I gave her a few books that I was looking to donate and got quite a few from her in return, complete with swag!  I got:

• A sampler of White Cat by Holly Black
• The Lonely Hearts Club by Elizabeth Eulberg
• Perfect Chemistry by Simone Elkeles (I won this one from Sandy's blog a while back and only got it now... ha ha!)
• Impossible by Nancy Werlin
• Scones & Sensibility by Lindsay Eland
• Tangled by Carolyn Mackler
• The Body Finder by Kimberly Derting
• Hero by Mike Lupica -- this one piqued my interest because I've only ever seen sports fiction with his name attached.

Looks like I have a lot of reading to do!   :D

What's In Your Mailbox?

Looking for Alaska by John Green

Title: Looking for Alaska
Author: John Green
ISBN#: 9780525475064 (hardcover)

I made a mental note to check out one of John Green's books after I started watching vlogbrothers (a collaborative video project between John and his brother Hank). I finally followed through on this plan during a recent trip to the library. His name just popped into my mind, and so I searched for Looking for Alaska, his first novel.

Looking for Alaska takes place at a boarding school in Alabama where Miles, the narrator, goes to in search of the "Great Perhaps." He isn't exactly sure of what that is, but he feels compelled to go after it. After all, he doesn't have much to lose, but everything to gain. Once he arrives at Culver Creek, he meets his roommate (Chip, or, the Colonel), gets a nickname (Pudge), and meets Alaska (no... that really is her name).

It's safe to say that Pudge goes through a lot of changes at Culver Creek. He didn't have very close friends back home in Florida, first of all, and he'd certainly never met anyone like Alaska. He finds her instantly intriguing, and, with all of her characteristics and mannerisms, I found myself sympathetic to that. She is, without a doubt, interesting.

It's hard for me to write this review without attempting to sum it up, but this isn't a book that you can just describe to someone else (therefore I won't even try, which is probably better). I really enjoyed reading from Pudge's perspective--seeing him change during his stay in Alabama, realize his feelings for Alaska (whatever they are), and even eating bufriedos. Everyone in Pudge's immediate circle of friends has some unusual talent or quirk (one memorizes countries and their capitals, another can rap on the spot... etc.), and they're all very intelligent.

John Green's writing style is incredibly poetic, even when describing the simplest of things. I could just hear his voice as I was reading, almost as if it was actually John talking to me--and I mean that in the best of ways. I also wondered just how much of Looking for Alaska was autobiographical. That made the book, which already had a certain amount of mystery, even more mysterious. How much of it actually happened?

If you're looking for something very thoughtful, witty, or just plain well executed, try Looking for Alaska. It's definitely made me more of a John Green fan. On a side-note, reading his novel made a lot of the little references that he makes in his video blogs with Hank a lot clearer--so there's also that to look forward to! I will certainly be reading more of his works in the future.

And here is a video from John Green, which pretty much covers what I was trying to get at with the autobiographical thing:

Beastly by Alex Flinn

Title: Beastly
Author: Alex Flinn
ISBN#: 9780061998669 (paperback)

I originally saw Beastly on a display table at my job a while back. I picked it up, intrigued by the cover (I like interesting fonts), and noticed that it was going to be a movie at some point. Aside from that, I didn't really know much about it. I had rung it up for customers a few times, so I assumed that it was somewhat popular, but that was the extent of my knowledge.

A little over a week ago I was sitting in my living room watching TV when a commercial caught my interest. It was the trailer for a movie...! A while earlier, I saw the trailer for I am Number Four--which I really want to read/see--and thought it was a repeat, because I recognized the lead actor, Alex Pettyfer. As the trailer progressed, I realized that it was completely different! This trailer was for Beastly, in which he is also playing the lead! I was mesmerized by the trailer, I'm not gonna lie... As soon as it was over, I said, "I need to read the book." A few days later, I took a little trip to my local library and picked it up, along with two other lovely novels. I love being on vacation!

Anyway, enough backstory...

Alex Flinn's Beastly is a modern retelling of Beauty and the Beast. It focuses on Kyle, the handsome, rich, and popular son of a news anchor. He gets himself into trouble when he decides to play a prank on the mysterious goth girl in his class after she vocalizes her disgust for the Homecoming royalty ballots (which Kyle has been nominated for). He lashes right back at her, but after class is over, he asks her to go to the dance with him. She accepts, and he begins planning her humiliation.

Kyle's real girlfriend finds out about his plans with the goth (Kendra) and he has to explain himself. Magda, the maid (since Kyle's father is far too busy to care for his home or his son), is sent to pick up the corsage. She gets the wrong one and he is furious. At the dance, he passes it off to the plain-looking girl taking tickets. When Kendra arrives, Kyle reveals the true reason behind inviting her--to make her a laughingstock.

After the fun is over, Kyle is cursed to live as a beast--a clawed, hairy, ugly beast. He has two years to find someone who loves him, despite his hideousness, and kiss him as a result.

Kyle's father is ashamed of what has become of his son and takes him to every possible doctor, miracle man, voodoo expert, you name it--in order to "cure" him. Nothing works, and he ships Kyle off to live in exile in a five-floor brownstone in Brooklyn, with the maid and a blind tutor as his only company. That is, until the incident with the burglar.

Overall, I have to say that I liked Beastly. My ideas of what it would be like were considerably different (it looks like they made a lot of changes for the movie adaptation), but I enjoyed it regardless. To be honest, though, I found the first couple of chapters in part one to be a little tough to get through--Flinn's writing style is nice, so I'm not saying that it is difficult to read for that reason--I'm saying it was tough because Kyle is just plain annoying in the beginning. I'm going to chalk that up to good characterization, though: he really is a self-absorbed jerk through and through. He frequently made mention of his good looks and the fact that he had a lot of money. Once he goes through his transformations--losing his pretty face and, oddly enough, becoming more human--I found him much easier to tolerate, even likable. One thing I liked in particular was his name change. After looking up the meaning of "Kyle" ("handsome"), he decides to go with something more fitting of his physical image.

When Lindy arrives, his transformation really picks up. Although he does not change physically while she is living with him (she has the entire fourth floor of the building to herself), he becomes quite a thoughtful person.

There wasn't anything that I outright hated about the book. However, what I wasn't crazy about was the occasional inclusion of the chat sessions--that was a little too cheesy for me. Considering that this is basically a fairy tale, I feel like I shouldn't take that too seriously. I suppose that Flinn added those to make the whole situation more believable (I mean, who doesn't use a computer nowadays?), but I don't think that they were really necessary.

Beastly is a light sort of read with emphasis on inner beauty--and that's not a bad thing at all. I happen to like fairy tales, so reading this was pretty nice. If you aren't interested in that sort of thing, then you may find the basic storyline somewhat tiring, but I'd say that it's worth finishing for the characters. It's hard to not like Lindy, and Will (the tutor) is quite funny. Give it a shot!

Here is the trailer for the movie version of Beastly, starring Alex Pettyfer, Vanessa Hudgens, Neil Patrick Harris, and Mary-Kate Olsen: