Scholastic Press, 2011
ISBN-13: 978-0545259088
Available: New Hardcover and Kindle
Forever is the third book in the popular series The Wolves of Mercy Falls. Of the three books, Forever is the longest and the least focused of the three. The beginning, though, is completely baffling. It’s told from the point of view of a female werewolf, Shelby, in wolf form, during her attack on an unnamed girl (Shelby is near Sam’s age, but prefers to be a wolf, and wants Sam as her mate). As in previous books, it’s disconcerting to hear a wolf communicate using words, and the unexpected killing in the first pages is a radical, and memorable, departure from the beginnings of the first two books. The next chapters slow the story down considerably, with a lot of waiting as Grace shifts back and forth before Sam can find her, and some confusing parts when Grace is apparently taken into the pack and taught some basic rules of pack behavior before finally shifting to human for long enough for Sam to connect with her.
In the meantime we learn that the girl Shelby attacked and killed was Olivia, Grace’s friend who transformed into a wolf at the end of Shiver, and that this additional attack has finally given Isabel’s father, already passionate about ridding Mercy Falls of the wolves, the ammunition he needs to get sharpshooters in helicopters to hunt the wolves down. Cole, who also happens to be a scientific genius, has been experimenting to find the possible cause of the shifting and believes he has accomplished a way to control it. As the wolf hunt draws closer, Sam and Grace become convinced that the only way to save the pack is to lead them to a different place, and that the only way for that to happen is for Sam to transform back into the alpha wolf, and for Grace, who can communicate with him using only images, to guide him to lead the wolves to the new location.
While the story slows way down after the initial scene with Shelby’s attack on Olivia, the action picks up and rushes along in the last hundred pages, with a lot of suspense about who will survive the wolf hunt. The final pages, though, are anticlimactic. Shelby’s character gets shortchanged, which seems unfair since she was used to start off the book with a shock. The story of Isabel and Cole (the character I cared most about) has an unfinished feel. And after all Cole’s work on a possible cure, at the end we’re back to meningitis-infected blood.
Forever is the longest of the three books, and it feels that way. Stiefvater’s descriptive powers are impressive, but, they’re not enough. In spite of the fact that she’s centered her story on Grace and Sam, both werewolves, theirs are not the characters transformed by the events that take place in the world she’s created in Mercy Falls. The books in this series must be read in order to make any sense, but fans of the first two books will keep Forever flying off the shelf. Recommended.
Contains:N/A