Shiver - second post

Now I have read a bit longer since my first post and a lot if new
things have happened. I think the book is really good and it gets even
more exciting the more I read!
Grace is very exited about the meeting with her wolf, when she actually
touched him for the first time since they met. She really wants to talk
to somebody about it, but especially since Jack Culpeper got killed by
the wolves she figures that nobody will understand her feelings about
the incident.
Later, at the same day as Grace?s and Sam?s special meeting, the white
she-wolf shows up just outside her window in the dark. She looks at
Grace and seems to warn her from taking contact with Sam, to back of
and leave him alone. Like Sam belongs to her pack and isn?t supposed to
create a close relationship to a human.
I wonder if the whole pack are werewolves, as far as I?ve read it hasn?
t been mentioned in the text. But in Sam?s thoughts he thinks of them
with human names, so I think that the whole pack are werewolves.
One day a young policeman named William Koenig comes to Grace?s class
to talk little about his job. But the class soon discovers that he is a
bit nervous and doesn?t know how to deal with the teenagers, and they
immediately start ask questions about Jack Culpeper?s death. A question
asked by a girl named Elisabeth ? if it?s true that Jack?s body was
stolen from the morgue ? becomes the starting point for many questions
and wild speculations. To me it seems like the pressure from the curios
class and teacher at last make William talk a little bit about the
wolfs.
William says that he doesn?t think that the wolves are a threat to the
population, and when someone points out that Grace also was attacked by
the wolves she dismisses the incident and tries to support the
policeman. Because when people remember the wolves attacked her they
remember it could happen to anyone, and Grace is afraid that someone
will decide to go after them. To go after her wolf.
I really recognize the situation when a new person stands in front of
the class and immediately gets judged. The class maybe behave
themselves in the beginning, but if the person seems nervous and doesn?
t tell them to be quiet when they start talking, they immediately lose
their respect for, in this case, William Koenig.
The writer really make the reader feel petty for him, and the detailed
describing of William make me wonder if he?s going to be important
later in the book.
After school Grace and her best friend Olivia go home to Grace?s place.
Olivia really likes taking photos and shows Grace some of them. One of
them pictures Sam, as a wolf, standing in the forest and looking in the
camera. When Olivia notice Grace?s interest in the picture she gives it
to her.
But even though Olivia is the only one who is near understanding Grace?
s fascination for the wolves Grace can?t talk to her about them with
her like she used to. Somehow the wolves, especially Sam, feel too
personal to talk about now.
Later, when Olivia has returned home, Grace stands outside her house
looking at the woods, she suddenly hears a scream. Somebody is calling
for help, and Grace can swear that it sounds exactly like Jack
Culpeper. But that?s impossible! Jack is dead. Or?
Without thinking she runs into the woods, searching for the source of
the screaming. After a wile she almost runs into three wolvers. She
recognizes two of them, ? the white she-wolf and the pack leader ?, but
the third one, a young male, she has never seen before. Everything
about the new wolf, from the colour of his fur till his hazelcoloured
eyes, reminds Grace of Jack. Her head screams human when she looks at
him.
When Grace discovers the three wolves the pack leader and the white she-
wolf are pouching the younger male and forcing him down to the ground,
but when they see Grace they let him go and runs deeper into the woods.
Grace goes back home, but when she no longer sees the young wolf she
doesn?t know if she just imagined that the wolf and Jack was so alike.
This last part woke up a lot of questions in my head, and I think that
is exactly what the writer wants. Of course, I wander if Jack has
become a werewolf or not, I?ve argument both for and against.
If he is a werewolf, it explains a lot of things: Why a new wolf
suddenly appeared just when Jack Culpeper was ?killed?, why the wolf
and Jack where so alike, why Jack?s body was missing from the morgue
and why Grace heard a scream that sound just like him.
But in that case, I? don?t understand how Grace could hear Jack scream
as a human and in the next second meet him in wolf form. Because
considering what I?ve read before in the book the wolf doesn?t have the
possibility to change form whenever they want, they only become humans
in the summer when it gets wormer and wolves in the winter when it?s
cold.
So if Jack is a werewolf, how could he change form so quickly? Maybe it?
s different when you just became a werewolf? I don?t know yet, but I
think I?ll get the answers when I continue reading!

See ya lovers!
//Gertrud

Shiver - first post

I'm reading a book named Shiver by the American writer Maggie Stiefvater. The book is about a seventeen year old girl named Grace and her fascination for the wolves who lives in the forest just outside her house. Especially one of them has caught her attention, a wolf with unique yellow eyes that's often standing at the edge of the woods and her backyard, watching her.
But what Grace doesn't know is that the yellow eyed wolf actually is a werewolf. In the summers when it gets warmer he turns into a human, with the same special yellow eyes. His name is Sam.

The book is written in two different angels, Grace's and Sam's, and Sam's angel sometimes is from a human's perspective and sometimes from a wolf's. He also feels drawn to Grace, and the special connection between them seems to have been formed a cold winter many years ago. Then Sam's pack attacked Grace and dragged her into the woods. But despite the horrible hunger, Sam stopped the other wolves from killing her.

Grace doesn't remember how she survived, but she remembers Sam's special, yellow eyes. And since that day she spends a lot of time watching the pack and Sam, or as she likes to think, her wolf. Grace often tries to make contact with him, but it seems to me that Sam
is a bit afraid of a closer contact. As a human he has the chance to contact her, one time Grace even shows up in the same bookstore as he works. But instead of do something he just wishes that Grace will look into his yellow eyes and understand who he is. But she never notices
him as a human.

But one day in September, something unexpected happens. A boy in Grace's school, Jack Culpeper, suddenly gets killed. Everybody thinks that the wolves in the forest killed him, and now they are terrified of them. Everybody except Grace.

Ever since she started watching the wolves from her garden she has memorized all of the pack-members faces and personalities. Only two of them, the sick wolf and the white she-wolf, Grace could imagine attack a human. But the rest of them she doesn't fear at all. And she doesn't think any of them would attack someone without any reason.

One day Grace walks to the edge between her backyard and forest to meet her wolf. He's standing there as always, watching and waiting, and they face each other, closer than they never been before. Then she sees a little blood on his nose. Grace talks to him, and asks him if he killed Jack Culpeper. And then, for the first time since they met, Sam closes his yellow eyes.
Slowly Grace goes closer and eventually she thatches the wolf for the first time since they met. And he doesn?t move until the white she-wolf suddenly appears in the woods, just starring at them. Then Sam leaves Grace and follows the white wolf back into the woods.

This is as far as I've read in Shiver, and this last part made me wonder a lot of things. First of all, it seems like the rest of the pack has influence on Sam. They seem to stop him from take as much contact with Grace as he actually wants. I can really feel their desire to be close each other, but different things always seem to stop them.

I also wander if the wolves killed Jack or not. At first I think they didn't, but the fact that Jack was dragged into the woods, the blood on Sam's nose and his closed eyes when Grace asked about it, it all sounds so suspicious. But maybe, that's just what the writer wants us to believe, when there is actually a completely different explanation for Jack's death. So I really understand Grace when the circumstances around Jack's death make her a bit confused.

When I continue reading the book I think that Jack's death will have a big meaning in the future. The fact that almost everybody think that the wolves is responsible will get consequences.

And to get the answers to my questions and speculations, I just have to continue reading, and that's exactly what I'm going to do!
//Gertrud