Linger by Maggie Stiefvater

Title: Linger (The Wolves of Mercy Falls #2)

Author: Maggie Stiefvater

Publisher: Scholastic Press

Release Date: July 13, 2010

Source: Purchased

Buy the Book: Amazon / Book Depository / Indigo

the longing.

Once Grace and Sam have found each other, they know they must fight to stay together. For Sam, this means a reckoning with his werewolf past. For Grace, it means facing a future that is less and less certain.

the loss.

Into their world comes a new wolf named Cole, whose past is full of hurt and danger. He is wrestling with his own demons, embracing the life of a wolf while denying the ties of being human.

the linger.

For Grace, Sam, and Cole, life is a constant struggle between two forces--wolf and human--with love baring its two sides as well. It is harrowing and euphoric, freeing and entrapping, enticing and alarming. As their world falls apart, love is what lingers. But will it be enough?

I was a bit late to reading Shiver by Maggie Stiefvater, but when I finally did read it I pretty much fell in love with it. I’ve now read Linger and my love for these books has only grown that much more. If you thought the first book was amazing, the second one will blow your mind. It was great to see characters change and to have new characters brought in as narrators, it really added to the story and I think it’s one of the things that made me love Linger that much more than Shiver.

Sam and Grace have finally found a way to be together, but when Sam seems to be doing great, Grace isn’t looking and feeling so great. No one knows what is happening to her though everyone has theories. And now to make things bette her parents don’t want her seeing Sam anymore. Isabel is dealing with her brother’s death as best as she can but she still has many issues to work through. And now there’s Cole, the mysterious new wolf who can’t seem to stay a wolf even when the temperatures are more than low enough to make him change. Who knows what will happen now?

As much as I loved Grace the first time around, I didn’t like her as much in this book. She was still a great character but it just felt like she had become completely dependent on Sam. All things considered, that’s the only thing that bothered me about her, and with everything that was going on with her you can sort of see why. I saw what was happening to Grace coming, but I still didn’t want it to happen and it made me sad and annoyed. Can’t she catch a break? Isabel, I absolutely love. There’s just something about her that always either had me shaking my head or smiling. The way she talks and her attitude toward things is so completely different from Grace that it was nice to have her there to balance everything else. It was also great to have her as a narrator, she just has such an amusing outlook on things and it really allowed me to get to know her better which I loved doing.

I was so happy for Sam at the beginning of the book, he had finally gotten what he wanted. And then, as tends to happen, everything fell apart. I could feel his pain throughout most of the novel, and on top of everything else he also had to take over Beck’s job with the wolves. And with Cole around that couldn’t have been that easy to do at first. I love Cole, I wouldn’t say I’m Team Cole, because I still love Sam, but Cole was pretty great. He was more or less the opposite of Sam: where Sam wanted nothing to do with being a wolf, Cole looks forward to losing himself by turning into a wolf. I really liked seeing him evolve. I thought that by the end of the book he didn’t have the same ideas that he did at the beginning. And the change was for the best. If only he and Isabel could get over their issues I would be really happy.

The story was also pretty great. I loved having new characters and new points of view, they added something that I thought made the story more interesting. It wasn’t just about Sam and Grace anymore, Isabel and Cole are also part of it now. I really liked all the flashbacks to Cole’s past, they really helped get a better understanding of him and where he was coming from. For my part, I like how more people are getting involved in the story, whether it’s by choice or only because they find themselves in the middle of it all, it makes it more interesting.

Overall, Linger was a great read and an even greater sequel to Shiver. I honestly cannot wait until next summer when Forever comes out to find out how it all ends. Will Grace and Sam finally be able to get together? Will Cole and Isabel work out their issues and get together?