Wither

Wither by Lauren DeStefano
Release Date: March 22, 2011
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
Age Group: Young Adult
Pages: 368
Format: Hardback
Source: Own
Interest : Dystopian
Challenge: 2012 Reading Challenge
Buy The Book: Amazon

By age sixteen, Rhine Ellery has four years left to live. A botched effort to create a perfect race has left all males born with a lifespan of 25 years, and females a lifespan of 20 years--leaving the world in a state of panic. Geneticists seek a miracle antidote to restore the human race, desperate orphans crowd the population, crime and poverty have skyrocketed, and young girls are being kidnapped and sold as polygamous brides to bear more children.

 

When Rhine is sold as a bride, she vows to do all she can to escape. Yet her husband, Linden, is hopelessly in love with her, and Rhine can’t bring herself to hate him as much as she’d like to. He opens her to a magical world of wealth and illusion she never thought existed, and it almost makes it possible to ignore the clock ticking away her short life. But Rhine quickly learns that not everything in her new husband’s strange world is what it seems. Her father-in-law, an eccentric doctor bent on finding the antidote, is hoarding corpses in the basement; her fellow sister wives are to be trusted one day and feared the next; and Rhine has no way to communicate to her twin brother that she is safe and alive.

 
Together with one of Linden's servants, Gabriel, Rhine attempts to escape just before her seventeenth birthday. But in a world that continues to spiral into anarchy, is there any hope for freedom?

I have heard amazing things about Wither since it hit the YA scene a year ago. The gorgeous cover has been sitting on my shelf, collecting dust, and beckoning me to read it since I brought it home last April. Aquiring an ARC of it's sequel, Fever, was just the push I needed to finally dust this book off, and take it for a spin!

Wither isn't just another book with a pretty cover. It's a dark, yet rich and powerful dystopian, full of love, loss, and bitter conflict. I won't rehash the plot, because I'm sure most of you already know it by heart. What I will say is that Wither is definately a wonderfully written dystopain novel that I couldn't tear myself away from!

After reading the book,I can see why so many people are fans, and I am now lucky enough to join in their ranks. I was emersed into the the story and the world that Lauren DeStefano so expertly created. The story was so vividly described that I felt like I was right there in the middle of it all! I wanted to feed Rhine invisability pills and give her a map so she could run away! I wanted to reunite Jenna with her sisters, and I so desperately wanted to give Cecily back her childhood. No child should ever have to go through the things that she did, even though at times I wanted to give her a stern spanking!

Perhaps because the author so vividly painted a picture of the story, I at times felt a sickening feeling in the pit of my stomach. I really felt for these girls who had been plucked from their lives, and were sent to become sister wives and baby-making machines at such an early age. I felt horribely for Rhine being seperated from her twin, and for Jenna after knowing what fate all of her sisters faced. It bothered me how young Cecily was saught out, to marry and bear children for a 20 year old man! I wanted to cry out "she is just a CHILD! Barely a teenager!!!" but even if I had, I'm not sure anyone would've listened, or cared. There were times when I forgot how young Cecily was, and others when I couldn't seem to forget.

I loved the character development throughout the story, and I look forward to watching these girls lives grow in the next book! I'm dying to find out what young and foolish Cecily is up to, and what the beautiful Rhine has in store for her.

As much as I love dystopians, I can't help but wonder, why didn't I read this book sooner? Whatever the reason is, I am glad this situation has been remedied.