Fever

Fever by Lauren DeStefano
Release Date: February 21, 2012
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
Age Group: Young Adult
Pages: 352
Format: ARC
Source: Own
Interest : Dystopian
Challenge: 2012 Reading Challenge
Buy The Book: Amazon

The second book in The Chemical Garden Trilogy reveals a world as captivating—and as dangerous—as the one Rhine left behind in Wither. Rhine and Gabriel may have escaped the beautiful prison of Wither’s mansion, but they are far from escaping danger. First they’re chased for stealing a getaway boat, and then the fleeing pair ends up in the eerie den of Madame, an old woman who collects girls and sells them to the highest bidders. Worst of all, Vaughn, Rhine’s sinister father-in-law, seems to be on her trail every step of the way. Rhine remains determined to get to her brother in Manhattan—but the road they are on is long and perilous.

Now that Rhine has finally regained her freedom, what lengths will she need to go to in order to keep it?

I was so nervous about reading this book. It has been highly anticipated by many people for quite a while, and I was afraid it wouldn't live up to the expectations or hype. I had also heard quite a few negative things, and was really anxious about it.

The beginning of this book took off and I couldn't put it down. I loved the setting, and found myself intrigued by the whole circus theme. I was able to get more into the story and enjoy it than I had with the previous book. For one, the whole, 13 year old girls getting pregnant by 20 year old men, wasn't quite so in your face. Thank goodness, because at times I wanted to vomit! Even though I fully understood why this was taking place, I am the kind of person who visualizes everything as I read a story, so there were times when Wither was really hard for me to stomach.

In Wither a lot of time was spent on the character development, and getting to know each character. Who they were, where they came from, why they felt and acted the way they did. With the ground work already laid, Fever was able to focus more on the story itself and not so much on the backgrounds of each individual character.

For some reason, during the last 100 pages the story kinda fizzled out for me. I also found myself disappointed with the love story, or lack of ( at least to me!) . I've heard many complaint's about the ending, and talk of a huge cliff hanger that left people more frustrated than excited. That honestly kept me leery of reading this book, but I am so glad that I decided to find out for myself! While there is a cliff hanger ( let's face it, what trilogy , or series, doesn't have one? ) I felt like it wasn't a big deal. Basically, something happens that we've known for about 500 pages now, would happen at some point! When it finally did happen, I was actually excited, ( in  a good way) to read the next book and find out how Lauren will play this all out in the final book.

DeStefano yet again delivered another fantasy rich world that I couldn't tear myself away from! I loved the circus theme, with it's rich and colorful descriptions that made me feel like I was living inside of the book! All in all I really enjoyed the development of the story, and the intriguing setting. I would've liked to have seen more romance, but despite that, I found myself enjoying this even more than I did Wither!