Linger - Maggie Stiefvater

Linger is second book in The Wolves of Mercy Falls trilogy by Maggie Stiefvater. It was released in the UK on 21st July 2010 by Scholastic and it is 432 pages long.

Plot
Grace and Sam finally got the chance to be together in Shiver after Sam got hurt and transformed back into a human. Their happiness is about to be cut short though as problems from all sides begin to jeopardise their future.

Grace’s parents don’t like the idea of her being with Sam at all, forcing her to make the choice between them and him. Sam’s werewolf past is coming back fast to haunt him and newcomers are threatening everything that he has been working for. Grace and Sam’s relationship isn’t as simple as they make out though as she is keeping a huge secret from him. One that will change everything.

What I thought
Shiver introduced me to Maggie Stiefvater’s unbelievably beautiful writing and as soon as I was done, I wanted the sequel right away. Linger must have been my most anticipated sequel of the first half of the year and it really lived up to my expectations.

Although Grace’s part of the story should have been the most interesting, it wasn’t. Well, for me anyway. I had guessed what was going to happen with her very early on so I kind of stopped thinking about it until it actually happened. That aside, I really liked everything else that was going on with her. Grace’s problems with her parents were a big issue for her in Linger and I thought these parts were written extremely well and realistically. Shiver really set the scene for Grace’s parents and how they acted towards her. They are never around much and up until now, have let Grace have a free run to do whatever she wants. When they began to tell her that she couldn’t see Sam anymore, I thought her reactions were exactly what they should have been. I would have probably done the same thing if I had been in her position because I don’t think that they really had any right to start telling her what she could/ couldn’t do. I was so glad to see that Grace didn’t just take it from them and did what she wanted to instead. Go Grace!

Sam develops a lot in Linger and really comes into his own. At times, he felt like a completely different character from how he was in Shiver because of what he had been through. Sam seems to take in everything that happens and each little different thing has some kind of affect on his character. This time around, Sam is a lot stronger because of what he has to deal with. Without Beck, Sam has to grow up really fast and take responsibility for the other wolves and this was a part of the story that I really enjoyed. I think there are still some secrets behind Beck and the new wolves and I wonder if we will find out more in Forever.

I completely loved Isabel and Cole in Linger, probably more than I loved Grace and Sam. To start with, I was happy to see that Grace and Isabel had become really good friends since Shiver due to what they had both gone through. The fact that they had something so huge in common brought them closer, even though they are both really different people. Isabel is still in a pretty dark place after what happened to her brother and Grace seems to be the only one who really understands what she is going through… until Cole turns up anyway.

Cole appealed a lot more to me than Sam to be honest because of his bad boy rockstar-ness. Although a lot of the bad things that have happened to Cole were all his own fault, there were other things beyond his control and I really felt for him because of that. With both he and Isabel being in dark places, it was obvious that they were going to connect but I didn’t care that it was predictable. I thought that they made a great couple, although that isn’t really the right word for what they are. The tension between the two added to their chemistry and how they acted towards one another and this gave the story a completely different feeling in parts.

In Shiver, I loved the fact that it was told from both the POV of both Grace and Sam so when I saw that Isabel and Cole were getting their own voices, I was excited. Each character had their own distinct voice so when it was their turn in the story, it was very clearly done and never confusing. I loved being able to find out what was going on from other people in the story at different times and was glad that it didn’t focus solely on Grace and Sam.

The story went to places that I wasn’t expecting at all. I thought that most of it was going to concentrate on Grace and what was going on with her but instead, there was a lot more happening. Grace, Sam, Cole and Isabel all have problems in their personal lives and I liked the fact that this gave them all their own stories that added to the main plot. Even though they all had separate things going on, they were all brought together really well.

The ending was extremely predictable but with one more book to go, I can see that Maggie Stiefvater will write something amazing that will probably shock us all. I felt like the way that Linger ended was only natural and I would have probably been disappointed if it hadn’t turned out that way. I cant wait for Forever because everything should be wrapped up nicely. I kind of don’t want this trilogy to end up but I would rather it stay a trilogy than be dragged out of numerous, pointless books. So long as Maggie doesn’t leave us with some crazy unanswered questions then I will be more than happy.