Shiver by Maggie Steifvater

Shiver by Maggie Steifvater

Genre: Young Adult Supernatural Romance

To be honest, I wasn't expecting much from this book, Shiver, and it certainly delivered accordingly. A teen--no, a young adult--novel, Shiver chronicles the love-- strife with trials, tribulations, distance and interspecies taboos-- between the human girl Grace and the morphing werewolf boy Sam. The main conflicts lie in Sam's shapeshifting, which is rather interesting in that he changes according to temperature, and the presence of a vicious she-wolf along with the birth of a new and particularly volatile wolf. At one point, Grace rescues Sam and tries to keep him secret by letting him into her bedroom, all the while gazing at his breathtaking amber eyes and whispering sweet nothings--"You're so beautiful and sad"--into his ear.

Hmmmm, any of this sound familiar? A silly teenage girl in love with a supernatural being? A 'emo' boy caught in between his world and hers? "You're so beautiful" and "I'm not afraid of you"?

I wish I could say the language in Shiver was better than Twilight, even if their plots are so similar, but I cannot. Even the characters are pretty much one-dimensional. But, at least Sam and Grace did the deed. Straight to the point in the first book and within a few months of knowing each other. I can give him that much.

Rating: Judge this book by its cover.

May 27th, 2011 12:22am--transferred from ireadanything.tumblr.com

One Day by David Nicholls

One Day by David Nicholls

Genre: Adult General Fiction

The premise of this book is intriguing. Beyond the cliche of yet another love story, One Day follows two people's journeys through twenty years with plain yet plaintive language and humor. Nicholls chooses to paint this couple's saga in a series of vignettes about one particularly important day in each of their lives--July 15th. From foolish college days to woes of middle age, readers grow with Emma and Dexter, both who never seem to lose their individual character along the way. At times, I was frustrated and angry at Dexter's arrogance and fickleness and Emma's poutiness and lovelorn demeanor, and I rooted for their relationship's success in a perverse manner...'surely, two such stupid people deserve to be together'. But, such is life and such are human beings--no one is without flaws. In the course of 400-or-so pages and twenty book-years, I met and bid farewell to many people in Emma and Dexter's respective lives before they realize that they are both better off together. 

Oops, that could be a spoiler. But, I think anyone who reads One Day suspects from the very beginning that Em and Dex will end up in a relationship. Twenty years are a long time, and I think One Day spans two decades to show that little coincidences and general mundaneness make up every person's life and interactions with others. July 15th could be totally arbitrary, but, under the lens of Nicholls's One Day, July 15th becomes immensely significant. 

Rating: Leaves a Lasting Impression