Shiver

Eighteen-year-old werewolf Sam is the second of the novel’s dual-narrators. Tall and lanky, Sam has black hair and unusual yellow-gold eyes. In his wolf-form, he has a coat of deep-grey fur. Other characters in the novel often reference his striking eye color, assuming he wears contact lenses. Sam was bitten by Paul and Beck, his pack leaders, when he was seven years old. His subsequent transformation was extremely painful. Sam’s religious parents believed he was possessed by the devil and tried to kill him, for which they are serving life sentences in prison. Sam’s traumatic experience has left literal and psychological scars: Sam’s wrists still bear the marks from where his parents cut him, and he cannot bear the sight of a bathtub, in which they tried to drown him. Although Sam is repelled by gore and violence, he fights his disgust to protect his pack members and loved ones. Because of his courage and resilience, Sam ranks third in the internal hierarchy of his pack, slated to become the next alpha. Sam’s own parents may have shunned him, but he finds his chosen family in Beck, the leader of the wolf pack; Paul, the leader of the wolves; and Ulrick, whom he considers an eccentric uncle. Though Sam feels betrayed when he learns Beck was the one who turned him, he forgives Beck at the end of the novel.

The central conflict in Sam’s character arises from the fact that though he is a natural pack leader, he prefers to be a human, underscoring the novel’s thematic engagement with The Tension Between Human Emotion and Animal Instinct. Sensitive, self-aware, and intelligent, Sam feels most himself when he is in his human form. His love for Grace—whom he saved from the other wolves when he was 12 and she was 11—further tethers him to the human world. Sam loves music and poetry, unlike Grace, who prefers history and science. He often reads Rilke and Yeats and composes songs for Grace in his head. When he sings a song for Grace in front of her mother, Grace’s mother is so moved by Sam’s talent that she gets “goose bumps” (241). Stiefvater also emphasizes Sam’s sense of restraint around Grace. Though he is very attracted to Grace, he holds back from becoming intimate with her—an impulse that signals a subversion of the trope of an aggressive and dominant romantic lead that embodies a more traditional form of masculinity. In the novel’s climax, Sam forces himself to turn human for a brief while so Grace can inject him with a possible cure. His ability to transform demonstrates the power of his love for Grace and his human existence. Stiefvater positions Sam—a round character with a dynamic arc—as representative of transformation.

Described by Grace as having “more than her share of the Culpeper good looks” (32), Isabel, Jack Culpeper’s sister, is tall with a cherubic face and blonde hair that she wears in curls. While Isabel is a secondary character in Shiver, she becomes a narrator in the subsequent books in the Wolves of Mercy Falls series. Initially, Stiefvater depicts her—through Grace and Sam’s eyes—as an arrogant young woman, who can be superficial and cruel. Grace notes she dresses her Chihuahua, Chloe, to match her handbag and drives a white SUV. She taunts Grace that the wolves in the forest will be hunted, despite knowing of Grace’s affection for the creatures. However, as the plot proceeds, Stiefvater reveals Isabel’s complexity. For instance, Olivia observes that Isabel’s refusal to wear performative black after her brother Jack’s disappearance indicates that she is the only one truly mourning him.

Stiefvater emphasizes Isabel’s fierce devotion to her family—the quality that drives the majority of her actions in the narrative. Despite her misgivings about Jack’s cruel nature—she admits to Grace that she never really liked her brother—Isabel feels duty-bound to help him. Isabel’s care for her family despite their flaws is what helps create a bond between her and Grace over the course of the novel. Isabel shows Grace her empathetic, intelligent side. For instance, it is Isabel who finds and rescues Sam from the outhouse where Jack has locked him. It is also Isabel who figures out how to induce a high fever to arrest the lupine transformation in werewolves. Isabel often uses irreverent and humorous language in tense situations such as when she tells Grace that she escaped the transformation because “[her] idiot dad left [her] in the car to cook” (334). Isabel’s empathy, sharpness of mind, and care for others becomes more prominent as the story progresses, positioning her initial arrogance and superficiality as self-protective armor to protect her from feeling vulnerable.

Olivia, Grace’s best friend, is a secondary character in the novel who shares Grace’s fascination with the Mercy Falls wolves. Olivia has tanned skin, dark hair, and bright green eyes in her human form and, once she is bitten, transforms into a wolf with a white coat and green eyes. Although Olivia is striking looking and an excellent photographer, Grace notes that she avoids human company, describing Olivia as “painfully shy” (34). On another occasion, she observes Olivia always looks neat and tidy, “straight-A report card made flesh” (27). As the novel begins, Grace and Olivia have drifted apart, feeling tongue-tied around each other, which the story suggests is a natural consequence of the two characters growing up and coming into their own.

Stiefvater demonstrates the growing tension between the two friends in Olivia’s tendency to dismiss Grace. When Grace tells Olivia she suspects that Jack has turned into a werewolf, Olivia refuses to entertain the suggestion. Even after Olivia learns Grace was right, she does not seek her out to apologize. However, Olivia also has a kind side, as is obvious in her willingness to help Jack. Since she witnesses Jack’s painful transformation, Olivia feels moved to help him. Her intervention comes at her own peril—Jack bites her in his human form in an attempt to threaten her. Olivia becomes a werewolf and refuses the meningitis infection, asserting that she’d rather be a wolf than risk death. Stiefvater suggests that Olivia finds the form far more desirable and liberating than her human self.

Known as “Beck” in the novel, the older werewolf serves as the leader of the werewolf pack and acts as a father-figure to Sam and Shelby. In human form, Beck buys a safe house in the woods that provides a sanctuary for his pack. In his former life, Beck was a successful lawyer, married to Jen. At age 28, Beck was bitten by Paul, the alpha of their pack. Jen died of cancer soon after, plunging Beck in grief. Beck, who had always wanted children, spotted Sam at a bus stop and, moved by his wolfish eyes, turned him to raise as his own son. This ethically ambiguous decision defines Beck: Though he is kind, paternal, and courageous, he also tends to play God, often taking unilateral and morally debatable steps to ensure the safety of the pack. Not only does he turn the young Sam, changing his life forever, he also recruits teenagers for the pack, and executes the violent Christa.

As a human, Beck is a large man with dark red hair and brown eyes. As a wolf he has a dark grey coat. Beck rescued Sam from the tub after his parents left him to die and fought in court as a lawyer to sentence Sam’s parents to life in prison. As Beck explains to Grace, he’s aware of the magnitude of his error in turning Sam, since Sam does not enjoy being a wolf. He admits that he has regretted his decision every day for many years. In the novel’s climax, Beck redeems himself by helping capture Sam for the injection. Sam forgives Beck for turning him and tells the older wolf that he loves him. Stiefvater positions Beck as a complex character with a dynamic arc who makes mistakes and attempts to rectify them, closely tying him to the motif of flawed parents in the novel.

Jack, a werewolf and the brother of Isabel, acts as the story’s antagonist. Stiefvater describes Jack as good-looking, like the rest of his family—tall with curly dark hair and hazel eyes. As a wolf, Jack has a bluish-grey coat. Since Jack is a recent werewolf, he shifts between human and wolf states often. Like Sam’s, his transformations are painful. Grace reflects that Jack is a bully. When he is supposedly dead, people mourn for him in school for performative reasons, but many are relieved to see him gone. Jack reinforces Grace’s worst assumptions about him by trapping Sam in a cold, dark room, eating Chloe, his sister’s dog, and deliberately biting Olivia, knowing Grace will come forward with her supposed cure when her best friend is in peril.

Stiefvater positions Jack’s violent streak as, in part, learned behavior from his father, Tom Culpeper—the antagonist in later books of the series. Grace notes the rumor that “Jack got his short fuse from his dad” (29). Although Grace describes Jack as a “jerk” and hates him for his cruelty to Sam and Olivia, at the end of the book she finds it difficult to hold onto her anger against him (12). Desperate for the cure, Jack demands that Isabel inject him with meningitis, contracts the bacterial disease, and dies on his way to the hospital. Although Jack remains a static character, never reconsidering his actions, the narrative nuances his villainy by framing it as the product of his upbringing.

Shelby, a beautiful, striking-looking werewolf with white fur and icy blue eyes, serves as an obstacle to Grace and Sam’s romantic arc. Grace notes that Shelby has a “savage, restless beauty to her” (14). Unlike most of the other wolves of the pack, Shelby radiates a threat. In her human form, Shelby is a slender girl with blond hair, a southern accent, and a body covered in scars from both a wolf attack and abuse at the hands of humans. Stiefvater implies that Shelby’s guarded demeanor comes from surviving a lifetime of physical and emotional abuse, causing her to mistrust humans and embrace the freedom of her wolf form.

Unlike Sam, who loves reading books, Shelby only wants to learn things that will help her survive as a wolf. Ambitious and power-hungry, Shelby wants to be Sam’s mate since he is slated to become the alpha male of their wolf pack. However, the flip side of Shelby’s ambition is her willingness to go to any lengths to mark her territory. Stiefvater demonstrates Shelby’s ruthlessness when she deliberately frees Mr. Dario’s dogs so they can attack Paul. She also tries to kill Grace, since she is jealous of Grace’s closeness with Sam. Although Grace’s father shoots Shelby in the novel, she survives and appears triumphant when Sam becomes a wolf. Within the world of the story, Shelby represents an ongoing threat, appearing in subsequent books of the series.