Book Review - Shiver, and Reminising About "Page 148"

I'm just about finished reading Shiver by Maggie Stiefvater. It's one of The Girl's books. She was so wrapped up in it when she was reading it I decided I would give it a whirl. The book's got just about everything a tween / almost teen could love. There's forbidden teenage love, best friends, absent parents.

Perfect fantasy for a kid her age. Or so I thought . . . .

Spoilers abound - I don't censor.

Shiver is about a girl who was attacked by wolves when she was 11 years old, only to be saved by a special wolf who took a shine to her. Flash forward to present day, we learn the wolf becomes human when its warm out. The wolf boy and the girl fall in love and she has to try to figure out a way to stop him from morphing back into a wolf before it gets too cold for her to stop it. In the meantime the she sneaks the wolf boy into her house at night to sleep and stay warm, while he snuggles her close and recites Rilke poems to her, all the while her parents are oblivious to the whole thing. There's a pack of other wolves who weave in and out of the story. Some are nice, some aren't, most are just non player characters in the book. Reading level is about 6th grade, but the story is just entertaining enough to keep me engrossed throughout my entire commute on the train to and from work. All in all, I can see why a 13 to 16 year old girl would like this book.

There are a few moments in the book where was questioning whether or not some of the subject matter might be a little more than PG13, and perhaps will steer The Girl away from reading the next 2 books for a while by making her read what's on her school reading list. That should buy me a least until summer.

To me, though, it was not much different than stealing away with a copy of Forever or Tiger Eyes when I was her age. And what girl born in the 70's hasn't read and re-read page 148 of Petals on the Wind?

Seeing the world through the eyes of a 41 year old mother of a (almost) teenager is different from seeing the world through an innocent young woman, though. I think I'll stall and hold off on her reading the next two books in the series.