Book Trailer Thursday: Shiver
Posted by: Daniel Kraus
In honor of Ian’s great interview with Maggie Stiefvater, I bring you a very special episode: A Tale of Two Trailers.
First up is the more-or-less “official” trailer for Stiefvater’s werewolf romance Shiver. The content portion of this video is barely 30 seconds and constrains itself to elements found on the book jacket. Not especially ambitious, eh? Thankfully, Shiver has the kind of book jacket that does – even if only momentarily – hold a few secrets. At first I didn’t even notice the wolf behind those snaky tree limbs. And how about that splotch of blood that dots the “i”? I also appreciate how the video’s opening lines of standard bad-boy fluff (“He’s not what he seems . . . but he’s everything she wants.”) is followed by far more elusive text (“Her yellow-eyed boy. His summer girl.”).
If you watched the Booklist Online interview, you’ve seen proof of Stiefvater’s drawing chops. She puts those artistic talents to work with her own cut-paper, stop-motion book trailer. It’s far more low-fi and impressionistic than the “official” video (no surprise there), featuring not a whit of concrete exposition. Instead, we get jittery trees and meandering leaves, and a moment between a woman and wolf-man that is drawn out for so long that it reminds us how seldom we see real stillness anymore.
Verdict: The first trailer probably sells the book, but it’s the second that will make you want to read it again.
July 5th, 2010 at 11:23 am
yeah, finally found a book i can read this summer:)
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