Book Review: Linger.

Linger is the second book in the Wolves of Mercy Falls series. And it is just as good as the first one.

Grace was bitten by the wolves, werewolves to be exact, when she was a little girl. Shortly after she was bitten, her dad accidentally left her in the backseat of his car, asleep, in the sweltering heat, and she practically cooked to death. That event in itself is what lead Grace, Sam, and Isabel to believe that it was the extreme heat, the temperature at which her body got, that cured the 'wolf' inside her. Which in turn lead them to inject Sam and Isabel's brother with meningitis, to raise their bodies core temperature higher than it should ever be. Sam survived the experiment, Jack didn't.

It's wintertime now, and Sam is human, has been human the entire time. Even though it's real, he wakes up each morning and walks around in the cold each day, and goes to sleep each night, as a human, it's is still hard for him to accept.

Grace is sick, Grace never gets sick. She has been having dreams about her shifting into a wolf, the wolf she should have been, but never was. Her head hurts, her stomach aches, and she has an on again off again fever, especially at night when the wolves are howling.

Cole was a rock star, lead singer of the band NARKOTIKA, but his life meant nothing to him, he choose to be a wolf, to escape everything he had been constantly already running from. Beck promised him that he would be lost forever once he changed, that's exactly what he wanted... didn't he?

Isabel couldn't forgive herself for Jack's death, it was her fault, no matter what anyone tried to tell her, she knew it was her fault. She was slowly getting more and more lost in a world of self loathing. Until she met Cole, who was finally finding his way out of that very same world.

The 'cure' they found for Sam may not be a cure at all, as Grace gets sicker and sicker, they remember that after a wolf has stopped shifting for about fifteen years, it finally dies. Grace never shifted to her wolf form, but she was still bitten, and it's been about fifteen years now, Grace is dying from not shifting. They need to find a cure, one that will save her life and one that will allow her and Sam to remain together. And they need to do it fast.

This was an awesome book, and I absolutely can not wait for the third one in 2011, Forever. Maggie Stiefvater has done a wonderful job with this series!!

Ratings: Number 4 and 3 stars

Linger
Maggie Stiefvater