In Defense of Maggie Stiefvater

The Rejectionist, an anonymous editorial assistant whose blog we follow, posted something called "Today's Book Review." The book up for review was Maggie Stiefvater's SHIVER. As fans of The Rejectionist and SHIVER we were really excited to see what she had to say. But we were surprised when instead of a review, we found a post and subsequent comments that seemed like book bashing. We felt that our thoughts and concerns were too many to be contained in a single comment, and we wanted to bring this post to the attention of our readers.

Here's the link. Read it now if you'd like, or just continue on to our assessment.

Before we begin, we'd like to state that we totally support the freedom of speech, and the freedom for everyone to have their own opinion. Will everyone like a certain book? No. Will every book on the best seller list appeal to you? No. And that's cool. We love SHIVER. It's ok if you don't. We have no problem when someone states why they didn't appreciate or enjoy a book. However, we feel this post became something else altogether.


1) The post presents itself as a review, but basically becomes a diatribe against "the Enfeebled Heroine" in Young Adult literature. And we quote, "Stiefvater's heroine Grace is even more insipid and insulting than Stephenie Meyer's Bella." (Yes, Bella gets her share of the attack too. But Grace gets it worse.)

2) IF The Rejectionist wanted to write a post ranting about this Enfeebled Heroine, that would've been fine. We don't like Enfeebled Heroines either. But singling out this one novel and writer was unwarranted.

3) We're also concerned by the comments. At the time of writing this post, there are 33 comments. Only TWO even remotely contradict The Rejectionist. 31 others either vehemently agreed, or at the very least, wrote something neutral. Many of these 31 commenters were writers, both aspiring and published. What happened to support in the writing community?

4) The Rejectionist points out a number of strong, female heroines as counter-examples. Katniss, Katsa, Clary (ALL AWESOME). We agree that those examples are very positive heroines. However, there are different types of strength, and some of them include vulnerability.

5) We feel as though the estimations of SHIVER were pretty far off the mark in a few ways. Our complete opinions can be found in our co-review of the novel, but here are our major disagreements. Please be aware, these are just our opinions:
-- Grace is not a pushover. Nor is she insipid. She's a reserved but capable person who doesn't complain about her absentee parents and who has a strong friendship with two other girls. Even when she thinks Sam's dead, she carries on with her life. That is not weak and is a far cry from the reaction of another popular YA heroine that Grace is juxtaposed with. We have no intentions of turning this into a Twilight discussion, however, it is one thing to go catatonic after the loss of your soulmate and quite another to continue living and forming relationships and making plans for the future.
-- Grace is not a victim. In fact, though Sam provides her emotional support, she saves him many more times and in many more ways than he ever saves her. His supernatural abilities do not turn him into a strong alpha male who makes every decision for the heroine and who must protect her at all costs. His supernatural abilities are presented as a disease. It weakens him and Grace must be the strong one.
-- Sam is not a Bad Boy. Sam is a multi-dimensional, poetic character, quite different from the "charismatic male figure who seems to carry all the personality in the relationship."
-- Their relationship is not baseless and simplistic.
"Shiver is the story of a young lady who is attacked by (were)wolves as a toddler and is rescued by a young (were)wolf pack member who is Mysteriously Drawn To Her and subsequently lurks about her premises for a few years until! lo and behold! she Hits Puberty and the Impassioned Forbidden Werewolf Romance begins." and "love that is self-abnegating, all-consuming, and totally erases any kind of independence looks a lot more like domestic violence than fabulous romance, and doormats aren't actually very interesting as protagonists"
As the novel progresses, Maggie goes in depth about their connection and the reasons behind it. Sam saved her as a girl, and because she was bitten, he hung around to make sure she had support if she changed. Grace was bitten, and thus felt a connection to the wolves.
--"Grace thinks, I need this to live, the very first time her werewolf paramour kisses her." This line is used to prove that Grace's life revolves around Sam, however, anyone who has read SHIVER should be able to see that it is simply one of those lines that anyone is capable of thinking when they first fall in love. Grace's thoughts and actions are a far cry from that one impassioned sentence throughout the rest of the story. It was used very much out of context.

In conclusion: As YA writers and strong, confident females, we respectfully disagree. We're disappointed that someone chose to name a specific novel in connection to a post that called it and novels with supposedly similar heroines "shit" and "the same old crap."

"Can we maybe aim a little fucking higher, please?"

Yes, we think we can. And we are. While we support the expression of opinions and love to hear rants on weaknesses in genres or trends, maybe next time there can be another way to show this without singling one author out (in this case we believe unjustly) as the scapegoat.

-- Donna and Frankie