Title: Linger
Author: Maggie Stiefvater
Genre: Young Adult
Publisher: Scholastic Press
Publication Date: July 13, 2010
Hardcover: 368 pages
Where’d I Get It: The publisher (thank you thank you thank you!!)

Synopsis (From Goodreads): In Maggie Stiefvater’s Shiver, Grace and Sam found each other. Now, in Linger, they must fight to be together. For Grace, this means defying her parents and keeping a very dangerous secret about her own well-being. For Sam, this means grappling with his werewolf past . . . and figuring out a way to survive into the future. Add into the mix a new wolf named Cole, whose own past has the potential to destroy the whole pack. And Isabel, who already lost her brother to the wolves . . . and is nonetheless drawn to Cole.

My Thoughts: Here is where I’m going to go into lala fan-girl mode for a moment.  Thank you, Mrs. Stiefvater, for rocking so much.  I absolutely adore your writing.  Really, it’s refreshing to read the work of an author who makes full use of the English language.  Linger begins in a prologue with Grace as the narrator, and we are privy to all of the tumultuous thoughts that she’s having.  Just as the first book in this series did, this one grabbed me from the beginning.  Grace says, well..thinks, “This is a love story. I never knew there were so many kinds of love or that love could make people do so many different things.”  and “I never knew there were so many different ways to say good-bye.”  That was it for me. Had to keep going.  We get to know Sam better in this novel, which I really like. He’s an interesting character and I was hoping for a little more of him this go round.  Isabel is also introduced more into the main story, and I have to say I like her a lot more than I did before.  I didn’t -dislike- her initially, because even as a secondary character she had a lot of depth.  This was expanded upon in Linger, and I just love that Ms. Stiefvater made that effort.  It was fun to see the bonds forming between Isabel and Grace as the book progressed, and definitely nice to see in a YA novel that the female protagonist CAN exist outside the realm of just her boyfriend’s presence.  Cole, too, was an interesting character, albeit a cranky and melancholy one initially. I should note that though I did very much enjoy this book, I am not as in love with it as I am with Shiver.  That’s not stopping me from anxiously awaiting Forever, though!

Rating: 8 of 10

My review of Shiver.

Personal Tidbit (sorry): This book arrived at my home on 10/05/10, which was the tail end of my In Vitro Fertilization cycle.  I was in pain physically and dealing emotionally with things I never thought I’d have to deal with.  The book stayed in its packaging until 10/11/10, the day of our Egg Retrieval.  I unpacked it, sat it next to the bed, and planned to read it when I got home from the procedure. Instead, I slept. The next few days were -hell-, to put it bluntly.  I had Ovarian Hyperstimulation Syndrome and we almost were unable to do the Embryo Transfer.  Fortunately we were given the go-ahead on the procedure and on 10/14/10 the embryo was placed back into my body.  When I got home from that portion of the procedure, I began to read Maggie Stiefvater’s Linger. I read it once over the first five days between my 16-hour-a-day naps and then started it again right after I finished it the first time.  On October 24th I was unable to sleep so I read it -again-, that night, until 6am….at which point I finally fell asleep.  Two hours later the phone rang and we got the best news ever – we were pregnant!  My due date is July 4, 2011…8 days before the release of the third book in this series, Forever.

I’m a hormonal, emotional, sappy mess right now, and obviously I know that all of this is coincidence and happenstance, but… As I read Shiver earlier in the year, we were anxiously awaiting news on if we could start IVF.  As I read Linger, we managed to get pregnant on that very first cycle of IVF.  I would absolutely LOVE to read Forever as my husband and I welcome our child into our family.  See? Sappy. I’m going to go cry now…or maybe eat a piece of cake?