Shiver

“I remember lying in the snow, a small red spot of warm going cold, surrounded by wolves. They were licking me, biting me, worrying at my body, pressing in. Their huddled bodies blocked what little heat the sun offered. Ice glistened on their ruffs and their breath made opaque shapes that hung in the air around us. The musky smell of their coats made me think of wet dog and burning leaves, pleasant and terrifying. Their tongues melted my skin; their careless teeth ripped at my sleeves and snagged through my hair, pushed against my collarbone, the pulse at my neck.”

Maggie Stiefvater opens the novel with a visceral account of Grace’s wolf attack using sensory language and visual imagery. Grace’s response to the werewolf attack highlights her mixed emotions—the tension between fear and fascination. Though she is being bitten by wolves, she experiences their tongues as “melting” against her skin, and their smell as “pleasant and terrifying.” The complex response foreshadows Grace’s affinity for the wolves. The image of Grace’s red blood against the expanse of snow exemplifies Stiefvater’s use of striking visuals in the text.

“As the hours crept by, the afternoon sunlight bleached all the books on the shelves to pale, gilded versions of themselves and warmed the paper and ink inside the covers so that the smell of unread words hung in the air.”

Throughout the novel, books represent knowledge and sanctuary. The sense of home Sam feels in the Crooked Shelf is reflected in his perspective of the bookstore. The books appear “gilded” in the warmth of the afternoon sun, while the scent of ink and unread words wafts over the shelves like a comforting aroma.

“I picked up my sweater from the floor and crawled back into bed. Shoving my pillow aside, I balled up the sweater to use instead.

I fell asleep to the scent of my wolf. Pine needles, cold rain, earthy perfume, coarse bristles on my face.

It was almost like he was there.”

Grace often evokes Sam’s presence through his scent: The vivid descriptions of the scent are an example of Stiefvater’s use of sensorial imagery. Depicting Grace as exceptionally attuned to scent foreshadows her eventual transformation to her lupine form.