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tonya.'s Reviews > Forever
Forever (The Wolves of Mercy Falls, #3)
by Maggie Stiefvater (Goodreads Author)
by Maggie Stiefvater (Goodreads Author)
I just don't know. I feel like I'm betraying myself by not loving this book more.
To say I was disappointed in this book, the conclusion to one of my favorite series (okay, really just book, as I had a really hard time with Linger), is almost giving it too much credit. Disappointment carries with it some emotion, and the problem I had with Forever--much like I did with Maggie's latest, The Scorpio Races--was that I just didn't feel much of anything from it.
Sam Roth has been my number one book crush for almost two years now, and after Linger crushed my heart into a million pieces on his behalf, I swore up and down I wouldn't read Forever until someone who loved him as much as I did gave me the all-clear. I just needed to know if this book was going to rip out my soul and crush it into dust.
It didn't.
But it also didn't make me feel much of anything else, either. Maybe my wariness to read translated into a distance from the characters, but even Sam Roth felt like a pale shadow of the boy I'd fallen in love with in Shiver. There was just no substance behind him. Everything he did and felt and said was muted. Even his interaction with Grace was understated to the point of complacency. I didn't need any burning passion between them--that's not their style or the reason I fell in love with them in the first place--but I wanted to feel some strong emotions. I wanted to feel their need for one another. Something more than just Cole telling me their love was more real than anything in the world. Show me that it is. Don't just tell me through someone else's perspective.
And speaking of perspectives... the alternating points of view. What purpose did they serve? Cole is an interesting character and played an important role in the plot, but he would have been just as interesting and important through either Grace or Sam's POV. Same goes for Isabel. I like their characters, but their narrations were at best distracting, at worst completely unnecessary.
The constant shift in point of view added a lot to my feelings of distance from the story. It felt as though every time I finally started to settle into a character, get my bearings, the tone shifted again.
And after three hundred pages of talk, the action was short-lived and didn't even bring full resolution--very few questions posed through two and a half books were answered. (view spoiler)
All in all, a very disappointing end to a story that probably should have ended with the first book, anyway. Shiver took my heart, Linger crushed it, but Forever hardly even touched it.
To say I was disappointed in this book, the conclusion to one of my favorite series (okay, really just book, as I had a really hard time with Linger), is almost giving it too much credit. Disappointment carries with it some emotion, and the problem I had with Forever--much like I did with Maggie's latest, The Scorpio Races--was that I just didn't feel much of anything from it.
Sam Roth has been my number one book crush for almost two years now, and after Linger crushed my heart into a million pieces on his behalf, I swore up and down I wouldn't read Forever until someone who loved him as much as I did gave me the all-clear. I just needed to know if this book was going to rip out my soul and crush it into dust.
It didn't.
But it also didn't make me feel much of anything else, either. Maybe my wariness to read translated into a distance from the characters, but even Sam Roth felt like a pale shadow of the boy I'd fallen in love with in Shiver. There was just no substance behind him. Everything he did and felt and said was muted. Even his interaction with Grace was understated to the point of complacency. I didn't need any burning passion between them--that's not their style or the reason I fell in love with them in the first place--but I wanted to feel some strong emotions. I wanted to feel their need for one another. Something more than just Cole telling me their love was more real than anything in the world. Show me that it is. Don't just tell me through someone else's perspective.
And speaking of perspectives... the alternating points of view. What purpose did they serve? Cole is an interesting character and played an important role in the plot, but he would have been just as interesting and important through either Grace or Sam's POV. Same goes for Isabel. I like their characters, but their narrations were at best distracting, at worst completely unnecessary.
The constant shift in point of view added a lot to my feelings of distance from the story. It felt as though every time I finally started to settle into a character, get my bearings, the tone shifted again.
And after three hundred pages of talk, the action was short-lived and didn't even bring full resolution--very few questions posed through two and a half books were answered. (view spoiler)
All in all, a very disappointing end to a story that probably should have ended with the first book, anyway. Shiver took my heart, Linger crushed it, but Forever hardly even touched it.
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Reading Progress
| 07/02/2011 | page 97 |
|
25.0% | "ho hum." 3 comments |
| 07/02/2011 | page 175 |
|
45.0% | "I don't know what it is, but I'm just not feeling this. Even the sweetness of my Sam seems diluted and cut from cardboard. :(" 2 comments |
| 07/03/2011 | page 335 |
|
87.0% | "Oh. FUCK." 1 comment |
Comments (showing 1-24 of 24) (24 new)
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tonya.
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rated it 3 stars
Dec 04, 2010 10:05pm
She has a lot of explaining to do.
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Was I the only one wondering why Grace had just turned into the wolf at the end of Linger, after being given the injection as opposed to when she was Bitten by Shelby earlier?
No. In Shiver (chap 37), Shelby attacked her in the kitchen. There was blood and I had originally assumed it was just Shelby's (before she was shot), but it appears to be Grace's too--possibly. She had a gash on her arm, and while that can be because of the broken glass from the back door, Shelby's teeth had a strong grip onto Grace's arm before Sam managed to get her to let go. In the chapter when she's at the hospital, after the incident, she says that Shelby's teeth marks left ugly bruises.... So can it be inferred that Shelby never punctured her skin? I suppose it's possible, but to be honest It'd always seemed like she (shelby) had managed to break skin...with the blood and all. I guess that just always left me confused when holding the whole plot development in the latter part of Linger in comparison.
I imagine if Shelby had in fact broken skin, Grace would have morphed into a wolf sooner, non?
Ooooh. I didn't remember that part. Yes, it makes sense. To be honest, Linger in its entirety fell short for me. It wasn't very well put together. I still maintain that Shiver was never intended to be a series, but the publisher pushed for it or the author changed her mind at some point.
Yeah, I totally agree. Did you watch her reading of the first two pages of Forever? It made me excited for the next installment, but Shiver was totally a wonderful work without the sequels. At the moment I'm totally still reeling from If I Stay. So beautiful and gut kicking. I can't wait to read Adam's perspective of the future. I am coveting your advance copy, LOL.
I didn't watch it. I was too afraid, haha. I'm actually having a friend read it first to tell me if it's okay for me to read, or if I should just forget that anything after Shiver exists, heh. If I Stay... gah! So wonderfully painful. Loved it. I liked Where She Went very much, but I think I liked If I Stay more... or I just liked them in different ways. They're very, very different books.
I could not agree more. I absolutely adored SHIVER - but I have no idea what happened here. What a way to end a series!Excellent review!
Thank you! I was just scrolling through the other reviews and feeling like I'd gone off the reservation a bit. I'm glad someone else agrees with me, even if I'm sad we didn't have a better experience.
I would necessarily categorize it as awful, Kaye. I did give it three stars. Parts of it were good, but there was a lot left missing for me.
Truth be told (for me at least), this was one trilogy that I really think worked best as a standalone novel. I wish it would have ended after SHIVER. But you're right, Tonya, it wasn't awful, and parts were okay.
I can't make up my mind whether I want to read Forever. I agree that Shiver could have stood all by itself and I would have been satisfied with it.
Amelia, I totally agree. I am of the theory that Shiver was never meant to be a trilogy, but someone at the pub house pushed for it. ;) May be a conspiracy theory, haha, but Shiver was just so perfect (and seemingly resolved) that Linger's conflict felt forced and contrived.
Kelly, you're so right. I've actually encouraged my more sensitive friends to read Shiver and not go on to the sequel, and they've been perfectly happy with the way it ends.
I think you may be right, Tonya. Linger ended up frustrating me--I thought it was well written but that it had made Shiver almost pointless--that I'd been put through the wringer and still ended up back at square one, essentially.
Yes, Linger was endlessly frustrating and emotionally exhausting. My heart was so bruised at the end. And Forever leaves the same feeling of being back at square one, unfortunately. Though the ending is not painful by any means.
I held off reading your review until I read the book myself. You were spot on. I finished late last night and just felt that the story didn't move anywhere. I continued to be extremely frustrated that neither Sam or Grace wouldn't communicate or take their dire situation seriously. Isabel, almost spoke for the reader, bringing them back into reality. I dunno, I hated how it ended. I was frustrated that they didn't do anything sooner and clearly didn't understand why Cole wasn't a wolf if it was chilly.
Tonya, I finally finished reading it and I completely agree with you. I can't believe it ended this way. :( I didn't expect it to be Shiver, but I hoped it would at least be better than Linger. Ugh!
Yes...there was a definite lack of tension. Your theory about Shiver originally being a standalone makes a lot of sense, btw. *sigh* This does not bode well for Scorpio Races for me, I've been putting off that one...
