Linger by Maggie Stiefvater

I tried Grammarly's plagiarism checker online free of charge because no one wants to get caught cheating like Shia Lebeouf!

On Sunday afternoon between plays on the football field, I finished reading Linger by Maggie Stiefvater. I had previously finished the first novel in this series, Shiver, in only a couple of days, however this novel took far longer for me to complete. It wasn't the length of Linger that slowed me down, I simply wasn't as IN to it, as I was with the first book.

Linger picks up where Shiver left off. Sam and Grace are blissfully happy that they have finally found a cure for Sam and they are free to be together forever. Grace gifts Sam a chance to record his own demo at a nearby music studio and he is thrilled to have both an opportunity and a future. In addition to reading Grace and Sam's story, as readers we also start hearing Isabel's story and the story of a new wolf named Cole. 

As the novel progresses, Grace finds a dead wolf in the woods and soon after gets sick. Isabel notes that she has never seen Grace sick, not even with a simple headache. Grace continues to get even worse as the pages turn. One night after crying out in pain from her sickness, Grace's parents enter her room to discover Sam lying next to her in bed. Angry, as normal parents of teenagers would be, they kick Sam out of the house and ground Grace.

Grace, even after hospital treatment continues to get worse each day and smells like sick wolf. Cole and Isabel both notice it as well, but wonder how they can help her. Meanwhile Isabel and Cole are both attracted to each other, and soon all the characters learn about Cole's backstory. He apparently had quite the famous past before choosing a life as a wolf. 

SPOILERS AHEAD.

Grace eventually gets sick of her parents keeping her from Sam, and sneaks off with him for the day. After arriving home her father tells her that she isn't to see him again until she is 18. Grace runs away to stay with Sam but unfortunately her sickness overcomes her and she ends up vomiting blood. Cole and Sam bring Grace to the hospital where it is clear that Grace will die during the night if they don't do anything.

Cole is surprisingly, a genius, and figures out that it has been about a decade since Grace was bitten and cured of being a wolf. She needs to be bitten again, and turn into a wolf in order to stay alive. The wolf she had seen dead in the woods had been through the same thing, since the wolf hadn't changed into a human in so long, it died after a decade. 

Since Cole is still a wolf, transforming back and forth to a human, he is able to bite Grace and turn her into a wolf to save her life. When Grace has changed, Cole offers to change Sam as well, since Sam will have only a dozen years in his human form before he gets sick too. Sam declines, since he loves being human and Cole offers to help Grace get to the woods. Sam is left in the hospital room, Grace's parents angry because they think their daughter has run away. 

I think this book dragged quite a bit which is why I couldn't get through it as fast as the first one. It felt like Grace was just sick the entire book and that was all that was happening. We did learn quite a bit about Cole's backstory as well as some more information on why they became wolves. Some of the characters from the first book were left out of this book entirely, despite the role they played in the first novel. I just didn't enjoy it as much as I thought I would. I do want to read the third novel in this trilogy but think I might read something else first since I am a little bored with this storyline- we will see!

Have you read this series? What did you think of the first two novels? Share your thoughts in the comments!

Also if you have any book recommendations I would love to hear them, I'm always looking for a new read!

This is a sponsored post, written by me on behalf of Grammarly. All opinions are 100% my own.