For young paranormal romance, SHIVER by Maggie Stiefvater was excellent. Not necessarily because I was in love with either of the leads, but because they suited each other so well and I rooted for them all the way. Sweetness.

And the whole werewolf lore? Interesting. Of course, I’d take werewolves over vampires any day.

Checking out the author’s site, apparently SHIVER is the first of a trilogy. I’m not sure if I’m excited or…worried. I really enjoyed SHIVER, about would hate to watch it deteriorate as a series (Twilight anyone?).

Not exactly persuasive

I ran across ACCORDING TO JANE by Marilyn Brant on Amazon (before the whole Macmillan bit went down), and thought for some unknown reason it was YA. Instead, it’s an adult romance. Which is fine…except, well, if the whole I-slept-with-this-boy-once-in-High-School-and-then-hooked-back-up-with-him-when-I-was-34-despite-his-being-a-jerk story line is your thing. I found it depressing, even with the happy ending. If it meant to be a retelling of Persuasion, it missed (or miss-understood) that book.

Everyone always goes on about Pride and Prejudice, and it’s a good love story, don’t get me wrong, but for the whole depth and breadth and height my soul can reach, when feeling out of sight — that would be Persuasion. Not only is Anne an amazing, if quiet, protagonist, but the story holds THE most romantic letter in all fiction:

You pierce my soul. I am half agony, half hope. Tell me not that I am too late, that such precious feelings are gone for ever. I offer myself to you again with a heart even more your own than when you almost broke it, eight years and a half ago.

It’s like hearing Nat King Cole sing “My Flaming Heart,” how could you not melt in a puddle on the floor?

But more often then not, Persuasion gets lost, tucked somewhere between Mansfield Park and Northanger Abbey.

When I watched The Jane Austen Book Club movie (I can’t speak for the book, never having read it), I was floored by how every person in the film, and thus probably the script writer as well, completely missed the point of Persuasion. They at least had talking points with Austen’s other novels, some more valid than others, but all at least somewhat relevant. Persuasion, however, might as well have been written in Martian for all they grasped or understood.

Maybe it’s story’s quietness, that it’s more about people than a general social commentary, it’s threads running deep. Perhaps because the characters have endured more, lived years of making the best of what they had, when all the while they dreamed for more. Anne is strong in ways Elizabeth never had to be, and yet it’s Elizabeth who touted as Austen’s greatest heroine.

Poor Anne, she’s overlooked, maligned, and undervalued even in the world outside her pages. Still, considering how the story ends, I don’t think she’d mind.

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Metainfo

How does the werewolf lore in Shiver differ from regular werewolf lore?

Also: Persuasion is a brilliant book.

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I’m not entirely up on my werewolf lore in general, but in Shiver it had to do with the cold. During the winter they were werewolves, because the temperature dropped, and then human during the summer. They got so many years of being human, but eventually they would turn into wolves for good. In the story, it was Sam’s (love interest) last year of being human–so they do everything they can to keep him warm so he won’t change back.

It was a very sweet story, you might like it.

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