Review: Wither by Lauren DeStefano

Wither (The Chemical Garden Trilogy #1)

By Lauren DeStefano

Published by Simon & Schuster BFYR, 2011

ISBN: 978-1-4424-0905-7

Copy purchased at Borders

What's it About? Courtesy of Goodreads:

What if you knew exactly when you would die?

Thanks to modern science, every human being has become a ticking genetic time bomb—males only live to age twenty-five, and females only live to age twenty. In this bleak landscape, young girls are kidnapped and forced into polygamous marriages to keep the population from dying out.

When sixteen-year-old Rhine Ellery is taken by the Gatherers to become a bride, she enters a world of wealth and privilege. Despite her husband Linden's genuine love for her, and a tenuous trust among her sister wives, Rhine has one purpose: to escape—to find her twin brother and go home.

But Rhine has more to contend with than losing her freedom. Linden's eccentric father is bent on finding an antidote to the genetic virus that is getting closer to taking his son, even if it means collecting corpses in order to test his experiments. With the help of Gabriel, a servant Rhine is growing dangerously attracted to, Rhine attempts to break free, in the limited time she has left.

Lauren DeStefano's first book in The Chemical Garden Trilogy, Wither, is one of the most talked about books in the book blogosphere these days and with good reason. This book is amazing! Every day last week I came home to a new book blogger raving about this book on my Blogger Dashboard. My excitement finally grew to be too much that I started frantically calling bookstores trying to find a copy. My local Borders came through for me and put a copy on hold until I could get to the store. (Note: I did call the two independent bookstores in my town first, but neither of them had a copy. Both offered to order a copy of me, but I just couldn't wait that long.)

Technically, you could say that Wither is just another young adult dystopian novel to add to the dozens of young adult distopian novels, trilogies, and series that are flooding the market these days. But, I'm here to tell you that it's not. 

This is a fresh and original concept - In the search for perfection via genetically engineered children, society ends up killing off its children at a very young age through an unsuspected side effect: an incurable virus that kills like clockwork. Not only is this an intriguing premise for a novel, it is also a topic that is relevant in today's technologically and medically advanced world and in understanding world history during the early to mid twentieth century. The eugenics movement was popular in America and abroad, especially in Nazi Germany, in the early to mid 1900s.

The characters are solid and three dimensional. It is easy to get caught up in Rhine's story as she still mourns the deaths of her parents and being kidnapped and brutally ripped away from her twin brother Rowan by the Gatherers hired by Vaughn Ashby, a mad scientist bad guy looking for wives for his son Linden. I doubt the wives were meant to make Linden happy. I think the wives were meant to distract Linden so he doesn't catch on just how much his father manipulates him and his life. 

Which leads me to another amazing part of this book: the characters' relationships are so real they practically jump off the page. The dynamic between the sister wives: Rhine, Jenna, and Cecily; is especially charged and powerful. Their age differences - Jenna is 18; Rhine is 16; and Cecily is 13 - and backgrounds - Jenna was a prostitute (this is never outright stated, of course, just alluded to); Rhine left school after her parents died to work to support herself and her brother; and Cecily grew up in an orphanage - create tension and forge friendships and emotions all at the same time. Rhine and Jenna slowly become friends and both look after Cecily as a younger sister, even though she is a jealous brat sometimes who just can't wait to sleep with Linden.

 

The plot and storyline move quickly and is wholly engaging, so much so that I really forgot to question what I was reading to ensure that I actually thought it was plausible. One of the reviews I read before reading Wither was posted by Delphyne at The Book Den. She had many questions with the book and had trouble suspending her disbelief. I got so engrossed in the story that I forgot to think about any of the issues she brought up in her post. Maybe once my awe wears off a bit, I can revisit Delphyne's blog and have a good conversation with her about these questions!

Needless to say, this book packs a serious punch, especially at the end when you realize the book just came out and it will probably be a while before you can find out what happens in the next installment. *Sigh* On a scale of one (I hated it!) to five (I loved it), I give it a five.