Forever - Maggie Stiefvater

In Maggie Stiefvater's SHIVER, Grace and Sam found each other. In LINGER, they fought to be together. Now, in FOREVER, the stakes are even higher than before. Wolves are being hunted. Lives are being threatened. And love is harder and harder to hold on to as death comes closing in.

I love this series so much. There is something special about these books that other paranormal fiction books do not have. The characters are so real; their hearts and emotions are laid bare with each chapter. There is teen angst and school drama, but there is also an emotional depth to the series that makes it feel so honest. It's a beautiful series, and Forever is a beautiful book. Sam and Grace together are unlike any other couple I’ve ever read.

The entire story centers around a pack of wolves in Minnesota who are not really wolves at all. In summer they are normal human beings, but in winter when it turns cold they turn to wolves with no memory of their human lives. There is the beauty of the freedom of the wolf pack and the anguish of those humans who know there will be a time when they will never turn back to human and will live out perhaps ten to fifteen years and then die. Grace was bitten as a child in the first book but never changed. Sam saved her from the pack and she has a bond with this golden eyed wolf she often sees in the winter time. When she and the yellow eyed boy find each other in the summer time, it begins a beautiful innocent love.

In the second book, Linger, a new wolf enters the story....Cole. This book is so well done because there is the sweet and potentially tragic love story between Sam and Grace and then the hot and wild story of Cole and Grace's friend Isabel. There is no love triangle (thanks Stiefvater!).

And then in Forever: Cole is still desperately searching for a cure. Grace is a werewolf for half of the book, and Sam misses her desperately. Isabel is depressed, though she won't admit it to anyone, let alone herself. And all the while, the threat of Tom Culpeper and his desire to get rid of all the wolves is looming. What drives the plot forward is the fact that Tom Culpeper actually gets his wish: the government comes in to stage a massive hunt to exterminate all the wolves in Mercy Falls, meaning everyone - including Beck, Ulrik, Olivia, Cole, and even Grace are all in danger. So Sam and Cole must come up with a plan to save the wolves before they're all murdered.

The series was magical. It tugged at my heartstrings in a way that few books do. This is how two people with a deep forever love cope with one being human and the other not. It is how they cope with the knowledge that they have a limited time together. It is the story of Cole and finding out how much more there is to him than it appeared at first And it is the story of Cole's belief that he can find, if not a cure, an answer to what is happening to all of them in the pack. The characters, the writing, the plot, the beauty, the romance, the tragedies, all of it is absolutely phenomenal. Thank you Maggie Stiefvater for creating such a beautiful, unique love story.

Read this series! You are missing out! As always, I must comment on the cover art. I don't like it. It's too...cartoony. I would like there to be something more real to compliment the series.