Shiver by Maggie Stiefvater

Get ready Twilighters…there’s a new book in town. But in this book, nobody sparkles, they shiver…

Grace was brutally attacked by wolves when she was a child. She survived, which was something just short of a miracle. Even though she was attacked by wolves, she has a strange connection with them. She has a strange connection with one in particular who has distinct yellow eyes. He is her wolf.

Sam watches her from the woods during the cold months, but never has the courage to approach her during the warm months. As a wolf, Sam can keep a silent watch over Grace outside of her house, but as a human he fears how she will react to him.

Grace and Sam know they are in love long before they meet face to face. When they finally do meet, Grace is nursing Sam back to health after he is shot in wolf form. He has turned human again, much to his surprise because it is getting cold outside and turning this late in the season usually does not happen. It seems like this meeting was meant to be.

The problem? The next time Sam turns into a wolf will be his last. Grace and Sam have to make the most of their time together before the true cold comes and Sam shivers away forever.

This book switches perspectives between Grace and Sam, plus gives the temperature updates for every chapter. As the temperature falls, the tension grows. Other complications arise when a student at Grace’s school gets bitten by the wolves and starts to go through the change. Grace starts to wonder why she never changed into a wolf after she was bitten, and she starts to remember who saved her from the wolves so long ago.

There are many levels to this book that will keep you reading. Sam has an interesting back story filled with deception from his own parents (who tried to kill him) and his adopted parent, Beck. Grace too has parent issues, but not the deadly kind, just the typical absentee parents who ignore her. Another subplot has to do with Grace’s best friend Olivia, but I can’t tell you what happens or it will give everything away. Just pay particular notice to Olivia during the book. Oh, and another cool thing about the book is that it is written in blue ink!

If you love the Twilight saga, you will be pleased with the romantic love story between Grace and Sam. However, I will tell you that the ending kind of surprised me in a way that made me slam the book shut and say, “That’s how it ends?!?” Although the ending is abrupt, don’t worry readers, there is a sequel called Linger that is coming out July 20, 2010.

Read Shiver and you’ll be thinking about it long after you slam the book shut. Leave comments to let me know what you think!

Paper Towns by John Green

Margo Roth Spiegelman. She has been the subject of Quentin “Q” Jacobsen’s affection since the day they discovered the dead guy in the park when they were nine. Even though they had this common bond, the two grew up to be vastly different: Margo Roth Spiegelman is the high school’s queen bee who will mysteriously disappear for days only to come back to school with stories of great adventure and hijinks. Q, although not a complete nerd, does not show up on anyone’s radar, especially Margo Roth Spiegelman’s. So the night she crawled through his window and drags him, willingly, out on a night of breaking and entering, vandalism, and practical jokes, changes his life forever.

The next day at school, Q hopes that Margo will talk to him, or maybe even look at him and acknowledge his existence because they spent such a marvelous night together getting revenge on everyone who ever wronged her at school. But Margo never showed up at school the next day, nor the next day. Since she was known for her strange disappearances, which were thought of as adventurous and quirky by the other students, but selfish and dangerous by her parents, no one thought much of it. Except for Q that is. He knew something was different this time, plus he starts to find clues---clues to Margo’s recent disappearance, and these clues seem to have been left for him by Margo herself.

The rest of the book follows Q on a mystery—the mystery that is Margo Roth Spiegelman. As he follows the clues, he discovers things about her that no one knew, things that change the way he sees her, and things that could lead to finding her. However, Q worries that he might not find her in time…

This book is dubbed a mystery, and I agree that it is at first, but then it turns into a very seriously deep coming-of-age story that keeps the reader thinking and feeling until the very last page. A teen who reads this will relate to the characters and the cut-throat world of high school, but the adults who read this book will relate to the heartbreak and realization that people can’t always be who we want them to be.

John Green is one of my all time favorite authors. He is funny and witty, which is reflected in his writing style. After you read Paper Towns, read his other two books Looking for Alaska and An Abundance of Katherines. Also, follow his blog, which is in my links to the side and watch is Vlog Brothers videos on Youtube. You won't be sorry.

UPDATE: Paper Towns is being made into a movie by the same people who made Juno! AWESOME! Read it now before the hype begins...