Linger is my favorite book. This amazing book in a series centers on Sam, Grace, Cole, and Isabel. Any other story might begin with a high school or a college, where the innocent students are brought together by some tragedy, and couples form. Linger, however, has a twist: Sam and Cole are not just human but also wolf, and Grace is dying.
The second in the series opens with Sam enjoying a cold, wintery day. Usually, in the cold, he would "shift" into his wolf form, but during the first book Shiver, he and his girlfriend Grace found a cure - or so they think. He misses being with the pack of other part wolves, however being able to stay with Grace makes it better. Eventually, after a bit of walking, he encounters a person curled up in the woods, not in pain, not upset, not dead but just there. He is a new wolf, and his name is Cole. He was the lead singer of an extremely popular band who chose to become a wolf to lose himself. He breaks into a house and encounters Isabel, who kisses him before he reverts to his wolf form. Meanwhile, Sam goes home to find Grace is unwell, resulting in her parents finding him in her room and kicking him out. She is put into the hospital. Cole is forced to "re-bite" her, allowing her to shift. She runs off as a wolf - saving her life but leaving the agony of good-byes in her wake.
Overall, Linger is a dramatic book with its green cover and even greener text in an unusual font. It is definitely a page turner. One aspect that stood out was Grace's progression from "perfect student" to increasingly more defiant as the book - and her illness - progress. She changes slowly, but changes grow more and more noticeable, and surprising to readers who don’t expect the depth of the development. Throughout the first book and half of Linger, Grace is the model student. However, as she gets sicker and her parents refuse to let her be with Sam, she grows surprisingly angry and rebels against the pressure. This type of character development isn’t common among similar books. In them, characters stay fairly static and respond to situations from a set personality. Her parents' reactions may be even more interesting, with part of the climax including her father punching Sam in the face with a few choice words toward him. For reference, Grace’s father is an extremely calm and laid back person who dislikes violence. However, his actions are somewhat justified as Grace leaves her parents’ house despite being severely ill, resulting in the final conflict in a hospital.
The plot of Linger is not predictable in the slightest. It is not for people who want a cheesy love story about two teenagers who fall in love and run away together. Rather, it highlights the pain of separation and hope for a future despite the world falling down around the character's ears - Isabel with a father who wants to kill the wolves, Cole desperately trying to escape his fame, Sam attempting to avoid the wrath of Grace's parents while keeping her alive, and Grace herself slowly dying. Readers should be fairly warned that once they pick Linger up, they won't put it back down until they have read it several times, along with the rest of the series. In general, it is full of romance, tragedy, and plenty of twists and turns. I definitely recommend it along with the rest of the series for any reader looking to pass a week buried in a great book.