Review: Fever by Lauren DeStefano

Fever

Author: Lauren DeStefano

Publication Date: February 21st, 2012

Publisher: Simon & Shuster Children's Publishing

Genre: YA/Dystopia/Romance

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Synopsis:

Running away brings Rhine and Gabriel right into a trap, in the form of a twisted carnival whose ringmistress keeps watch over a menagerie of girls. Just as Rhine uncovers what plans await her, her fortune turns again. With Gabriel at her side, Rhine travels through an environment as grim as the one she left a year ago - surroundings that mirror her own feelings of fear and hopelessness. The two are determined to get to Manhattan, to relative safety with Rhine’s twin brother, Rowan. But the road there is long and perilous - and in a world where young women only live to age twenty and young men die at twenty-five, time is precious. Worse still, they can’t seem to elude Rhine’s father-in-law, Vaughn, who is determined to bring Rhine back to the mansion...by any means necessary.

My Thoughts: Although I did enjoy this book, I didn't quite enjoy it as much as I did the first book Wither, you can find my review for that here.

This book had pretty much the same pace and same amount of action and excitement which was good. I really liked the kind of slow but still very intriguing pace of the first book. Normally I would not be one to be a fan of a laid back pace in a book. But this series seems to pull it off really well. It's not action packed and exciting things aren't necessarily happening in every chapter. But there is always great character development and Rhine has an inner dialogue that is never boring and a personality that is entirely admirable.

The story starts off right where Wither left off. Rhine and Gabriel have escaped from the mansion and are heading to what they think will be a much better life. But oh, they were so wrong. Things are not all hunky dory outside those gates. Things are much more terrifying, corrupted, and down right filthy. They are almost immediately taken captive by a rather disgusting group of people and they spend the majority of the book trying to figure out how to escape yet again. Meanwhile, Gabriel and Rhine both are fighting a sickness that is definitely complicating the matter of escaping.

The one thing that made me like this book a little less than the previous one is definitely that it felt rather repetitive throughout the story. Rhine was constantly passing in and out of consciousness for different reasons. But it was always the same effect of her passing out and coming too and thinking about how badly she needs to change the current situation and to get away from her horrible nightmares. Lots of things changed around her during the course of the story, but her own predicament stayed about the same and it got a little monotonous to me.

But it was still a pretty great read and I will definitely continue on to the last book in the trilogy. Especially since things really started to get heated up and exciting towards the very end! Definitely a cliff hanger of an ending and I will be needing to get my hands on the next book in the series,  Sever.

I would still recommend this book and the series, especially to Dystopian fans. It is also a romance novel, but the romance in this book of the series was pretty limited.  I am definitely looking forward to what will happen romance wise in the final book!

Review: Wither by Lauren DeStefano

Wither

Author: Lauren DeStefano

Publication Date: March 22, 2011

Publisher: Simon & Shuster Books for Young Readers

Genre: YA/Dystopia/Romance

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Synopsis:

By age sixteen, Rhine Ellery has four years left to live. She can thank modern science for this genetic time bomb. A botched effort to create a perfect race has left all males with a lifespan of 25 years, and females with a lifespan of 20 years. Geneticists are seeking 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 kidnapped and sold as a bride, she vows to do all she can to escape. 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 is desperate to communicate to her twin brother that she is safe and alive. Will Rhine be able to escape--before her time runs out?

My Thoughts: This book sat on my shelf for far far too long! I think it was one of the first books I ever won in a blog hop and I have always wanted to read it, but I'm sure you understand how so many other books get in the way. But now that I have finally picked it up and given it a read I am so mad at myself for putting it off for so long. This book surprised me, in the greatest way a book can. I did not expect to love it as much as I did, and I love when a book unexpectedly yanks you right in.

As far as Dystopians go I tend to be quite a fan. This one is definitely keeping to that routine. I went into this book with no idea whatsoever what it was about. I like doing that every now and then. If you pick up a book that you have heard of but don't really know the synopsis of, do something fun and don't read the synopsis, it's fun! So that made the book even more interesting and fun for me because I had no idea what to expect and this book constantly surprised me and kept me on the edge of me seat.

Rhine is a young lady who was kidnapped and forced to be one of three brides to a rich young man named Linden. In this world Women only live until they are 20 and men live until they are 25. So men usually have many brides so they can reproduce lots while trying to work on a cure for this infection that is killing everyone off at such a young age. But being a bride and a baby maker to a cruel, kidnapping, controlling man is the very last thing Rhine wants to do. Luckily Rhine does make friends with the other two wives, each one of them completely different and unique in their own ways and individual back stories.

Even though Rhine is given a life of luxury and protection  to enjoy for the rest of her few years, it is not what she wanted. She is prepared to do what needs to be done to find a way out. The longer she is there the more dark and terrifying things she discovers. She thought things were already pretty darn terrible and devastating, but under the surface is much more darkness than she anticipated.

Will Rhine be able to find a way out? Or will she be forced to perpetuate the cure that Linden's family is looking for so desperately. With only a few short years left and some incredibly tough decisions ahead she has to move quickly. I adored Rhine's character. She was incredibly selfless and could see the good things in even the worst of people and always found a silver lining for the most terrible situations and that is definitely something to be admired.

I really enjoyed this book, I read through it fairly quickly and I immediately went online to order the next in the series :). I would absolutely recommend it to others, especially any dystopian fans !

Review: Wither by Lauren DeStefano

Wither
The Chemical Garden #1

Author: Lauren DeStefano

Publication Date: March 22, 2011

Publisher: Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers

Genre: Dystopian

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Synopsis:

By age sixteen, Rhine Ellery has four years left to live. She can thank modern science for this genetic time bomb. A botched effort to create a perfect race has left all males with a lifespan of 25 years, and females with a lifespan of 20 years. Geneticists are seeking 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 kidnapped and sold as a bride, she vows to do all she can to escape. 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 is desperate to communicate to her twin brother that she is safe and alive. Will Rhine be able to escape--before her time runs out? 

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?

My Thoughts: This is one of those books that I wasn't sure about until I picked it up and opened up to the first page.  After that, I was hooked.  This is one I did not put down and stayed up into the wee hours of the morning reading and thinking: "Just one more chapter!".

The summary above does very well in summarizing, basically, the whole book.  Rhine is kidnapped off of the streets on her way home from work, shoved into the back of a dark van and driven across the country to be sold as one of three brides for Linden.  Despite Linden being horribly naive and not as bad as she would have thought, Rhine's sole thought is of escape and living the last four years of life she has left her own way.

It was weird to imagine a world full of only young people.  There are the much older first generation people who age normally, but other than that every man was under twenty-five and ever woman under twenty.  There are orphans running rampant around and most people who are working are really young.  There were so many things that I found abhorrent in this novel and gave me such a shock (for instance, a thirteen year old girl being married off and getting pregnant and not many thought twice about it).  When I sat down and absorbed the world it made sense that things like that would be routine in a world where the young died young.  It really made the world seem real and painted a picture of what it had become.  But it was nevertheless disturbing.

Rhine Ellery was sold into a polygamous marriage after being kidnapped.  It was one of the many things that could happen in the world she lives in but never one she considered.  So, at the ripe age of sixteen she was married with two sister wives - one older and one younger.  Not to mention the existing first wife, Rose, who at the age of twenty was succumbing to the disease they would all eventually fall prey to.  Rhine's other sister wives all seem to accept their fate one way or another. Rhine, on the other hand, does everything within her power to make sure that she escapes - even if that means pretending to be in love with her husband and calling him "sweetheart".

Gabriel is the man who serves the sister wives their food and tends to their needs.  He is the only servant other than the wives' own personal servant permitted on their floor (which has no stairs and an elevator that can only be accessed with a key card).  He and Rhine form a companionship that could certainly turn into something else - if they weren't constantly worried about someone walking in on them or finding them out.  Gabriel is a sweet guy who barely remembers life outside of the confines of the mansion in which he serves.

Linden, the husband of Rhine and her sister wives, is so sweet and naive.  He and Rhine do get along and under any other circumstances they could have been at least sincere friends, I believe.  Linden is horribly in the dark about how his new wives have been brought to him and even what happens in his own home.  Everything in Linden's home is overseen and ruled by his cold, calculating and uncaring father - Vaughn.  Vaughn is a scientist who is laboring for a cure to the disease that is killing off humanity by any means possible.

Overall, I really, really liked this book.  Some of the things that happened or were mentioned through me off guard and left me reeling and unbelieving but the fact that I had a reaction so intense really speaks for the writing and the author of this series.  I honestly can't wait to start the next one.