Linger - Maggie Stiefvater

Title: Linger (Book 2 of The Wolves of Mercy Falls trilogy)
Author: Maggie Steifvater
Publisher: Scholastic, 2010 (Hardcover)
Length: 360 pages
Genre: Young Adult; Fantasy
Started: November 1, 2010
Finished: November 3, 2010

Summary:
From Amazon.ca:
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 in 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. At turns harrowing and euphoric, Linger is a spellbinding love story that explores both sides of love-the light and the dark, the warm and the cold-in a way you will never forget.

Review:
I read Shiver back in the summer and really enjoyed it. The author has a lovely style of writing, and Sam is a wonderful poetry-spouting character (can you tell I like Sam?).

Linger mainly deals with the aftermath of curing Sam and the effects it has on his relationship with Grace. Grace's parents suddenly wake up and decide to be parents instead of absentee caretakers, so there's a lot of conflict between them and Grace over her decision to see Sam. If this book convinced me of one thing, it's that I absolutely hate Grace's parents. They leave their daughter to raise herself and then decide to be strict over a boy when she's nearly eighteen, so hypocritical. That and when Grace insists that they trust her judgement and not interfere in her love life, they turn into super illogical parents and go so far as to forbid her to see Sam. I remember having almost identical conversations with my parents years ago relating to my hubby (then my boyfriend), so I really felt bad for Grace. Grace is also succumbing to an illness relating to the wolves and her being bitten as a child, so there's that constant worry she feels without wanting to upset Sam. Sam is trying to deal with his awe over being human and his worry that he might not stay that way, plus that fact that he's now responsible for the pack since Beck left. Plus there's Cole, who is wonderfully complex, and Isabel gets a lot of character development in this installment too.

I can't say much about the plot for fear of spoilers, but this book impressed me just as much as Shiver did. It is a little slow in the beginning, but soon picks up and ends on an awesome cliffhanger that will make you clamour for the third book.

Recommendations:
If you liked Shiver, you'll love Linger.

Thoughts on the cover:
I adore these covers. The shades of colours they use are pure eye-candy, and the text inside the book is green to match the cover (same as Shiver's blue text to match the blue cover). Can't wait for the third book's red cover and (presumably) red text.