Linger Review

Author: Maggie Stiefvater

Release Date: July 13, 2010

Pages: 368 (ARC)

Publisher: Scholastic

Most Appropriate For Ages: 14+
Where I Got It: Won
Other titles in series: Shiver

The Longing.

Once Grace and Sam have found each other, they know that 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.

The Loss.

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.

The Linger.

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?
---------------------------------
You know a book is good when you only remember that it's only a book when someone practically pries it out of your hands.

The plot definitely had more going on than in Shiver. There's not as much explaining the wolves, or relationship development, so we get to see deeper into the characters.

We are introduced to two new points of view, Cole and Isabelle. Both are refreshing and dark and easy to love, despite how completely screwed up they are. If possible, I think I love Sam even more (I have deemed him my literary boyfriend). Grace too. And them together.

Maggie Stiefvater might just be my favorite author ever. If not then she's really close. I am so emotionally involved with her characters, her plot line, and her brilliant, lyrical writing that it's insane.

 I had seen the ending coming since the very beginning of Linger, but I still had tears in my eyes. (For me this is saying quite a bit.) I'm having a really hard time writing this review, in case you can't tell. I just loved it so much. I liked Linger more than I liked Shiver, which was a LOT. Linger just brought the series to a whole new level for me. I don't know if I can literally wait for the final book in the trilogy, Forever.

How kid friendly is it? There are mentions of sex, and one of the characters did drugs heavily. There's a little bit of language, but not enough to worry about.

Linger Launch Party And Contest!

(Sorry for the lame pictures. Our camera got left at home so we had to settle for our phones.)

So, after a few hours of driving and me rushing everyone (my mom, Friend, and Friend's mom) out of the hotel early because I knew from other recaps that you don't get seats unless you come early, we made it to the Linger Launch Party with time to spare. (And we found seats, because I am an excellent rusher.)

We waited about 15 minutes for everyone to show up, then Maggie came out and started talking about Shiver, Linger, her blog tour, Plant People, her childhood, and more. If you've ever wondered if Maggie is as entertaining in person as she is on her blog and twitter and such, I'm happy to tell you that she is.

Afterward, they handed out raffle tickets and Shiver Trivia cards, which was how you won the awesome guitar that Maggie doodled. It's been about a year since I've Shiver, so of course I didn't do very good at all. Even though it was an open-book test.

Maggie then came back and read a chapter from Linger.

I couldn't fully appreciate it because I was still working on my Shiver Trivia questions, knowing for sure that I hadn't won. But I did win a Shiver shirt that I'll never wear (because it'd be way too tight on me, and I don't want to wash the autograph off). Then she did a Q and A, which was a lot of fun and pretty informative too.

Then we had CAKE.Isn't it pretty? It was also really good. But of course, on my way back to my seat, shimmying through the isles, my cake fell on the floor. Because that is the type of thing that happens to me in public. It landed in between some woman's legs and you could tell that she was kind of horrified. I then went on a little search for a trash can, then got another piece of cake.

Then we all got in line to get our books signed and picture taken with Maggie. When I walked up to Maggie, it was pretty nerve-wracking. Meeting Maggie, one of my favorite authors, was probably as exciting to me as any other normal 14 year old girl meeting their favorite pop star or whatever. I'm pretty sure I sounded like an idiot:

Maggie: You gonna run?
Me:...To where?
Maggie: Downstairs. They're making me sign downstairs after everything up here's done, so you'll probably have to run.
Me: Really? (You see, I was very nervous, and Maggie had been joking around all night.)
Maggie: Yeah...

She was really nice, but we didn't talk for very long since I'm pretty shy and tend to only have good conversations with people I know really well. But we did get a few pictures, like this one:

We had two cameras pointed at us, so Maggie and I were a little overwhelmed since we weren't really sure which camera to look at.

Then they announced the trivia winners, which I wasn't, obviously. Then we ran downstairs. We waited a little while in line, then finally she signed all of our stuff. When I walked up she said, "You're back!" Then signed all five of my things (4 books, 1 shirt) as we talked for a minute longer.
They have all already become some of my prized possessions, along with my MP3 player and chili pepper cup.

Then, we went across the street to the candy store that was the one from Shiver (or at least it was based off of it.) When we asked Maggie for directions, she told us to, "Walk in, close your eyes, and take a deep breath." So we did.

I don't know about the rest of you who have read Shiver, but that was exactly how I'd imagined it looking, and smelled just as Maggie had described it too.

Here is me and Friend outside of the store. (And yes, we did buy things, like white chocolate snow caps, and chocolate covered marshmallows on sticks and such. And I only ate the white chocolate snow caps, but I can tell you that they were delicious.)

There's what you missed at the Linger Launch Party. It was my first ever book event for an author that I've already read, and it was tons of fun! Hopefully I'll be able to go to some more.

And of course I didn't forget about you guys and your love of free books. I've got one signed ARC of Linger up for grabs, along with a super-snazzy bookmark! Wanna win? Fill out this form to enter. The contest will end on August 5, and is only open to those in the US and Canada. (Sorry, I'm broke from my last contest.) Good luck, I can't wait to give someone else their own new prized possession!

And be sure to look at for my (rave) review of Linger that will be up soon.

Guess Where I'm Going?

To the Linger launch party! It's July 20th in Williamsburg, VA. Maggie's one of my favorite authors and I can't wait to meet her in person, so naturally when I squeezed the "Yes" out of my mom, I was ecstatic. You can find more info about it then go here. I'll be sure to document every second through pictures and share them with you guys (*cough* and a contest *cough*)!

Two New Covers!

So, although it's been far too long since I've blogged, I've still been keeping up with the blogosphere. And, I want to share two brand new, amazing covers that I've found. Both are titles in a series.

This is not the final cover, but still so pretty! City of Fallen Angels by Cassandra Clare (Book 4 in the Mortal Instruments series) (Found this at Books Not Bombs!)


I know! I still haven't read City of Glass yet, though, so I've got some catching up to do. The next one is:

Linger by Maggie Stiefvater (Sequel to Shiver) (Found this at Presenting Lenore!)


I didn't think that the cover for Linger would be able to even be compared to the amazing cover for Shiver, but this cover is so eye-catching and beautiful! But now that I know that it's out there, I feel such...longing.