Ravenous Bookshelf

Rating: 4.5 / 5 stars

I believe I wrote earlier about my deep and abiding love for Shiver. The same applies to Linger, only more so.

So first: if you have not read Shiver, please please please go read it now. And I envy you, because then you'll have Linger to look forward to.

Beware, then, for slight spoilers ahead!

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This book involves werewolves and True Love and teen agony, but do not be fooled! It is a deeply felt, poetic work, with characters that seem to just burn off the page and oh, I do believe I am embarrassing myself.

I do not want to overhype, and I realize that my Cup of Tea is not everyone's, but I defy you not to love soulful, awkward Sam and rational, slightly emotionally-blocked Grace. They are back and their lives are not the Happily Ever After Now That We Are Together.

For one, Sam is still getting used to his humanness, struggling to trust that he really is cured, feeling the possibilities of life with Grace ahead but terribly afraid of losing it all. And he is perhaps right to be afraid...

I do not want to give things away, but I particularly loved the other character action in this book -- I couldn't even call them 'secondary,' because they are so vivid and this really is an ensemble piece instead of a straight single-couple piece. We get more of Isabel, deeply damaged after losing her brother, and Isabel gets .... Cole. One of the new werewolves, he has a troubling habit of showing up naked on her doorstep.

Oh, Cole. You beautiful, infuriating screwup. Watching these two wounded people snipe and weave and argue with each other was one of the unexpected joys of this book. I look forward eagerly to further developments with these two, who are enough to justify a spinoff book of their own.

Obviously, I didn't want this book to end. I was deliberately rationing myself, savoring each page in a variety of settings: libraries, airports, etc. And then it ended (if there is a Theme to these books, it runs very much along the lines of Nothing Gold Can Stay, or Change, Change, and Change Again).

So... to paraphrase Oliver Twist: Please, Miss... I want some more. Next book, please?