“I’ve always wondered how the loss affected him. From his behavior earlier, there’s clearly a lot of emotion there, but does he miss her? Does it stab him in the heart every time he hears her name?
Shiver takes place amongst the beautiful landscape of the French Alps with snowcapped mountains and cutthroat competition. Milla, the narrator, has a compulsive urge to always want to win, this desire isolating her from others, as she stops at nothing to achieve her greatest, much sought after ambitions. While simultaneously never missing the brazen chance to flip the most daredevil of tricks on her snowboard, the adrenaline making her feel the most alive and free she’s ever felt.
“THE GAME CONTINUES.”
During her time competing, she meets Saskia, svelte, bold, feared, deeply manipulative, and fiercely cruel. Milla becomes her closest competitor, as the two remain neck and neck with each other in the rankings, daring each other to one up the other at every chance. And in the time that they know each other there are dangerously underhanded acts that occur, passion that turns violent, and trysts, cheating, and lying that emerge and shake up their world cataclysmically within their closest circles.
“I can’t tell if it’s ghosts that scare her or this particular ghost."
However, fast forward, as the narrative alternates between past and present, and Saskia has gone missing, presumed to be killed, and everyone who is believed to be in some way involved with her or her disappearance, including Milla, are summoned by, who they later learn must be someone who has it out for them, to convene back near the sight of where Saskia disappeared at a mountaintop lodge. They are falsely led to believe that they are being invited for a good-hearted reunion, but the longer they stay the more sinister the circumstances become as no one is left to trust anyone. It is almost as if they can horrifyingly detect Saskia’s former sharp, exotic vanilla scent and see her shock of white-blond hair disappear around corners.
“Even after our earlier intimacy, I’m no closer to understanding her.”
This novel was a touch glacial (pun intended!) in the beginning to get started, but once it got going the pace picked up and I became submerged in this wintry world and breathtaking twists and turns that felt comparable to skiing down moguls. One of the only things that prevented me from liking it more, including the pace at the beginning, was how unlikeable a majority of the characters became. They most all hurt/betrayed each other irreparably, talked with no empathy, love, or compassion in certain instances that I believe wholeheartedly required it, and tramped on each other’s feelings so unblinkingly that it unnerved, shocked, and disappointed me.
“ “Kiss me, I whisper. Silence. “My head’s a mess.” “I know. So is mine.” I trace his mouth with a fingertip. “Kiss me anyway.” ”
The very end also felt like the main character hadn’t learned really anything authentic or true about her messy experiences of pain and different forms of grief that she had lived and maybe her coming full-circle would’ve also felt false or too clean-cut, but some greater acknowledgement on her part would’ve been nice.
“Shadow spreads up the slope as a cloud drifts by, and the mountain bruises violet before my eyes. What exactly went on up there?”
Other than that this was a thrilling adventure that made me question how games and our competitive, self-preservation instincts can get the better of us, but in the end I hope they won’t always win out over our equally as valuable capacities for love, goodness, and grace.