Uncharted

Maggie Stiefvater's Shiver is not your typical werewolf story. The full moon has nothing to do with Sam's change. It's temperature that triggers his change. Every winter he spends in the woods, a wolf. He changes back in the spring, when the weather warms up, but every year it's later. Soon, Sam knows, he won't change back. He'll be a wolf forever.

Grace has been trying for years to befriend the yellow-eyed wolf that she sees every winter. He watches her, but he won't come close enough for her to touch. One night, after confronting hunters out to slaughter the wolves, Grace returns home to find a naked boy on her deck, bleeding from gunshot wound. A boy who looks at her with familiar yellow eyes...

Uncharted from Sara Bareilles' Kaleidoscope Heart album made me think of Shiver, and its sequel, Linger. The lyrics don't fit perfectly, but the feel of the song, and the idea of going into unknown territory fits so well with the uncertainty Sam and Grace are coping with as they struggle against Sam's certain doom.

I wanted to press my fingers to her lips, push the words she was forming back into her mouth. It was too soon. I didn’t want her to say it yet.

But Grace went on, her voice low. “You missed the hottest months this year. It wasn’t that cold when you got shot. It was cold, but not winter cold. But you were a wolf. When were you a human this year?”

I whispered, “I don’t remember.”

“What if you hadn’t been shot? When would you have become you again?”

I closed my eyes. “I don’t know, Grace.”

I like these lines from Uncharted to associate with Grace and Sam's uncertainty:

"I'm going down.
Follow if you want, I won't just hang around
Like you'll show me where to go.
I'm already out of foolproof ideas so don't ask me how
To get started, it's all uncharted."

And I like these lines as a description of their attempts to fight the inevitable:

I won't go as a passenger, no
Waiting for the road to be laid
Though I may be going down,
I'm taking flame over burning out

Books: Shiver, Linger, Maggie Stiefvater
Music: Kaleidoscope Heart, Sara Bareilles