“Surrounded by wolves, I sat on the forest floor as the sun sank in the sky and the shadows of the pines grew, and I wondered how much time I had.”
Genre: Fantasy, Adventure, Romance, Fiction
Book Jacket Synopsis: “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. 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. 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?”
Review: Okay. I know that I may have partly doomed the Wolves of Mercy Falls series by reading everything completely out of order. BUT I still can only give Linger two stars out of five because while it does have some improvements over Forever, Sam and Grace are still bland characters. I think one thing that has bothered me about this entire series is that there is never really any forward plot development. If you make a list of concrete events that happen in Linger, it ends up being an incredibly short list. There’s a ton of flowery narration with little to no action, and for that reason Linger ended up being very boring. All four of the main characters are terrible at communicating (as are the supplementary characters, now that I think about it), which was very frustrating to me. Overall, I’m still a big Stiefvater fan but I have no interest in this particular series.
“I gave so many damns at once that it actually hurt.”
Genre: Romance, Fantasy, Fiction
Book Jacket Synopsis: “Cole St. Clair has come to California for one reason: to get Isabel Culpeper back. She fled from his damaged, drained life, and damaged and drained it even more. He doesn’t just want her. He needs her. Isabel is trying to build herself a life in Los Angeles. It’s not really working. She can play the game as well as all the other fakes… but what’s the point? What is there to win? Cole and Isabel share a past that never seemed to have a future. They have the power to save each other and the power to tear each other apart. The only thing for certain is that they cannot let go.”
Review: Despite my lackluster experience with Forever (which was likely at least partially due to my mistake of reading the Wolves of Mercy Falls series out of order), I can’t seem to give up on Maggie Stiefvater. I found Isabel and Cole to be somewhat compelling characters in Forever, and was interested to see what Stiefvater would do with the duo in this final, somewhat standalone installment. Overall, however, I was still disappointed. I found the general plot trajectory pretty stupid (Cole goes to L.A. not only to win Isabel back, but also to participate in a reality show) and there was very little character development. Cole and Isabel were almost constantly at odds; this ended up being frustrating because many of their problems could have been easily solved with improved communication. I also found it hard to believe that, given the events of both Forever and Sinner, Cole and Isabel could actually end up together in a stable, drama-free, long-term relationship. The supplementary characters were lacking for the most part. I really enjoyed hearing about Isabel’s eccentric and mega Type A cousin, Olivia, but her part in the novel was minimal. I do plan on reading Linger (the second book in the series) because I want to finish the series out, but I have pretty low expectations at this point. As I’ve said before, Stiefvater’s other books and series are, in my opinion, much better than the Wolves of Mercy Falls series.
“I wanted a library like this by the time I was Beck’s age. Not this library. A cave or words that I’d made myself.”
Genre: Fantasy, Adventure, Romance, Fiction
Book Jacket Synopsis: “When Sam met Grace, he was a wolf and she was a girl. Eventually he found a way to become a boy, and their love moved from a curious distance to the intense closeness of shared lives. That should have been the end of their story. But Grace was not meant to stay human. Now she is the wolf. And the wolves of Mercy Falls are about to be killed in one final, spectacular hunt. Sam would do anything for Grace. But can one boy and one love really change a hostile, predatory world? the past, the present, and the future are about to collide in one pure moment – a moment of death or life, farewell or forever.”
Review: Before diving into my thoughts on Forever, I have to tell a story. It is largely a story of personal failure, but I think it is relevant given that it ties closely to my feelings about Forever and the Wolves of Mercy Falls series in general. When I was in high school, I was lucky enough to be allowed to bring my best friend on our family vacation to Florida. As we intended to spend lots of time relaxing on the beach, we both brought plenty of books to read. I was halfway through Les Miserables, and she had brought, among other things, an advanced copy of the book Shiver by Maggie Stiefvater. I finished Les Miserables on the trip and, while I really enjoyed the book, was desperate for an easy, somewhat vapid read. Shiver, a book about werewolves and teen drama, sounded like the perfect remedy. After reading the novel, we both agreed that it was surprisingly good. Over subsequent years, I noticed that Stiefvater published additional books in the series, but never felt a need to actually see how the story progressed. Fast forward to this time last year, when I discovered The Raven Boys series and Stiefvater’s standalone novel, The Scorpio Races. I was hooked, a complete and utter Maggie Stiefvater fan. And for that reason, I decided it was finally time to read the full Wolves of Mercy Falls series. Here’s where the failure part comes in. I went to the local library and noticed that three Wolves of Mercy Falls books were conveniently in stock. I checked them all out and decided that I would reread Shiver, since it had been over three years since my first reading. However, when I got home I realized that I did not in fact have Shiver, but had instead picked up Linger, Forever, and Sinner (the somewhat standalone fourth book, which does not focus on Grace and Sam). Despite this setback, I decided that I remembered enough of Shiver to pick up with the second book. For reasons I can’t explain, I quickly started reading Forever. References to certain events and characters confused me, but I pushed onward, telling myself that the source of confusion was simply the years that had passed since I first read Shiver. It wasn’t until I had read approximately 300 out of 386 pages that I realized Forever was the third book in the series, not the second. Despite having the true second book, Linger, waiting patiently on my shelf, I had blindly plodded forward and read the wrong book. With less than a quarter of Forever remaining, I decided to embrace my mistake and finish the novel. I tell you all of this now because I fully recognize that my ignorance of certain characters and plot events likely influenced my rating of this book. But at the same time, I think Forever failed in a few poignant ways that made it a not-so-great read. For example, Grace and Sam, the two main characters, were shockingly boring. This is saying something, given that Grace regularly and unexpectedly turns into a werewolf. They just feel very one-dimensional. I also found the reality of Sam’s storyline a bit off-putting: the entire town thinks he not only murdered Grace (because she has gone incognito since becoming a werewolf), but that he has raped and murdered Olivia as well. WHY AREN’T PEOPLE MORE BOTHERED BY THIS? Why isn’t Sam more bothered by this? There are some easy, simple steps he and his friends could take to start salvaging his reputation, but they don’t take them until the very end of the book. I just didn’t get it. I really liked Isabel as a character, which I remember also feeling in Shiver, but I didn’t quite know what to make of Cole. Overall, I think Forever suffered from a lack of development in both the main characters and the plot. I love Maggie Stiefvater, but I also believe that her later works are better than the Wolves of Mercy Falls series.
The Banned Book Brigade 