Finished: Shiver (Stiefvater) I got this book for my 14 year old niece and decided I better read it first before giving it to her for Christmas. I wasn't sure what the content might be. Actually, not a bad little book. A little girl, Grace, is attacked by wolves when she's 11. She is saved by the yellow-eyed alpha wolf, Sam. She spends six years hanging out in her remote Minnesota backyard making eye contact with "her wolf". Unbeknownst to her, Sam turns human during the warm summer months. Sam worships Grace from afar, both as a wolf and a boy. When Grace is 17 and Sam 18, he finally lets her pet him as a wolf, and she buries her face in his fur. She feels extremely close to him. Then one day, the bad boy of the town, Jack, is killed by wolves. The town goes crazy and goes on a wolf shooting hunt. Grace freaks out knowing that "her wolf" might be killed. When she arrives home, she finds a naked, human teenage boy on her back deck, wounded in the neck. (Somehow the adrenalin that surged through his body when he was shot turned him human...hmmmm.) She knows immediately it's her wolf, turned into a human. She rushes him to the hospital where he survives and heals abnormally fast...in hours. He explains to her who he is, but she already knows. He tells her that he was bitten by wolves as a young child, and began turning into a wolf during the cold months. He explains that when he saved her when she was bitten, he kept waiting for her to turn into a wolf like he did, but she never did. She said she always felt close to the wolves after that. She also tells him how a couple of weeks after she was attacked by wolves, her dad accidentally left her sleeping in the car when she was sick one day and she barely survived the soaring temperatures. (dun...dun...dunnnnnn. I'm sure this will be the key to turning Sam human permanently, but the kids don't realize it yet.) Anyway, as predicted the human Sam and Grace become inseparable and fall in love. Sam longs to never turn into a wolf again, but he feels like the next time her turns he may never turn human again. Other characters come into play, like Jack's sister, Isabel, Sam's wolf-mentor and protector, Beck, and Grace's best friends, Olivia and Rachel. Jack's mean-girl sister, Isabel, is just as interested in finding a "cure" to the wolfness as Sam and Grace are. The kids finally figure out that surviving a raging fever, i.e., heating from the inside out may be the key. Jack and Isabel's mother works at a clinic where, conveniently, an outbreak of meningitis has occurred. Isabel manages to get her hands on some tainted meningitis blood to give to Jack, Sam, and Olivia, who has also now been bitten. Jack is injected, but before they can inject Sam, the cold night gets to him and he turns into a wolf. Grace manages to evoke some memories in him that turn him human for just a few minutes, and they inject him right before he turns back into a wolf again. Olivia gets cold feet and tells Grace she'd rather take her chances as a wolf for one season and then readdress the possible cure in the warm spring. And, it's a good thing she does....because Jack dies from his meningitis. (No great loss, because he was an abusive jerk.) Grace spends the next couple of weeks certain that Sam died from the injection because she hasn't seen him with the other wolves. At the very end of the story, as she goes out to her backyard in the snow, a shadow and footprints appear, and low and behold, it's the very human Sam...in the snow...not affected by the cold, and no longer a wolf. The End. I know this book is the first one of a trilogy, so I'm sure their story, and Isabel's, Olivia's, Beck's, etc. continues. I'm not sure I'm interested enough to read the next two books though. Now....to figure out whether or not it's an appropriate book for my niece. :-)