Linger by Maggie Stiefvater

Upon finishing Shiver, I wasn't so much left wanting more as I was left curious as to what else the story could do. After all, the first book was wrapped up so well by the end that I hardly saw the need for a sequel. I picked up Linger thinking that it was an unnecessary attempt at dragging things out to make more money. I am pleased to say that I was very much mistaken.

In fact, not only did I enjoy Linger but I actually thought it vastly improved upon the first book. My main issues regarding Shiver were with how difficult it was to warm to Grace and with how the side characters seemed a little flat. Both of these are fixed wonderfully in this book. Isabelle gets her own little subplot involving my favourite character of the series, new addition Cole. This both fleshes out her character and introduces another, more intriguing one, injecting some much-needed life into the beautifully told but admittedly rather dull Grace/Sam relationship.

And what about Grace herself? Well, this book is really about her coming to terms with possibly changing into a wolf, a twist which is obvious in hindsight but I genuinely didn't see coming at the time. I like it a lot as far as plots for the sequel could have gone and it shakes up the standard paranormal romance thing of 'one partner is human, the other is mystical'. The ending is an obvious sequel hook but it doesn't bother me as much as it would if the first book had ended that way.

I guess upon reflection that this book still suffers from one of the issues of the first one-that is again, nothing much particularly happens in it. But the characters were a lot stronger which helped disguise this fact and it felt like a more varied and interesting plot on the whole. Another issue I have with it is the disappearance of Shelby but I'm guessing she'll be saved for the third one, like Victoria was in Twilight.

Are my hopes high for the third one? After reading Linger, I'm definitely more intrigued than I was. Whether the conclusion can live up to it or not will remain to be seen.

Overall Score:

.5