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Product Description
Review
– *PW STARRED review, January 10, 2010
"Creepy and elegant, shocking and romantic, dreadful and rewarding, and delivers unexpected twists. It'll leave you longing for book two."
--Lisa McMann, New York Times bestselling author of the WAKE trilogy and CRYER'S CROSS
“Lauren DeStefano crafts an all too believable future. I loved the world, the romance, the writing -- exactly the kind of book I've been craving to read.”
--Carrie Ryan, New York Times bestselling author of THE FOREST OF HANDS AND TEETH
"This beautifully-written debut fantasy, with its intriguing world-building, well-developed characters and intricate plot involving flashbacks as well as edge-of-the-seat suspense, will keep teens riveted to the plight of Rhine and her sister wives. The compelling cover will draw them in and the cliffhanger ending will leave them eagerly awaiting volumes two and three of The Chemical Garden Trilogy. This thought-provoking novel will also stimulate discussion in science and ethics classes."--VOYA
“I really enjoyed Wither, I just couldn't put it down! Rhine is such an amazing main character. She is strong, passionate and determined…. Wither is nothing short of breathtaking. “
—sparkling-reviews.blogspot.com
“Wither is an exceptional novel that begins with a bang and doesn't let you go--it's gut-wrenching, shocking, incredible, and completely and utterly absorbing all at once…. DeStefano is a fearless writer, and though it is firmly its own book, Wither will remind readers of Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale.”
—TheCompulsiveReader.com
[A] thought-provoking debut, reminiscent of The Handmaid’s Tale with a touch of Big Love . . . Rhine’s fight for freedom against the clock—and the dissecting table—will leave readers eager for the sequel. Give this one to fans of The Hunger Games trilogy or Ally Condie’s Matched (2010). - KIRKUS, February 1, 2011
"[Rhine] proves herself to be a heroine who faces her situation with spirit and cleverness. The trapped bride and mysterious husband are straight out of Gothic romances. By stirring in elements of sheer creepiness with dystopia and the hot topic of polygamy, DeStefano creates a story that should have broad appeal."
--School Library Journal
"This absorbing page-turner may remind some readers of Suzanne Collins’ Hunger Games with its fearless heroine, sinister villain, bleak landscape and poignant romance. Wither is less violent but is in many ways even more terrifying as DeStefano proves herself a master of plot, setting, character and psychological suspense." --The Buffalo News
Book Description
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?
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Most helpful customer reviews
3.0 out of 5 stars
This world is so bleak and depressing!,
By Giselle from booknerd.ca (Canada) - See all my reviews
This review is from: Wither (Hardcover)
In Rhine's world society has been plagued with a deadly virus that kills women at the age of twenty years old, and women at the age of twenty-five. The population has decreased so much that teenage girls are taken at will by Gatherers to be sold to men who will take in a polygamous marriage. Rhine is one of these wives, a sister wife to Cecily and Jenna. Blond, and beautiful her eyes marked with one brown eye and one blue eye, she struggles to keep herself alive and sane while she is held prisoner at the mansion. She befriends a servant boy named Gabriel and together they plot to escape.This world is so bleak and depressing! Imagine no cure for a virus that automatically kills you! To have strength as Rhine does makes up for most of this slow paced novel. The relationships between the sister wives were just beautiful and it felt real. All of them being imprisoned in such a place where the rest of the world is bleak and hungry made their situation less frightening. I completely adore Rhine's strength of character. Her strong will to get out and find her brother is what moved the story along. The writing is beautiful and Lauren DeStefano is a great writer. I look forward to reading Fever. Rating 3/5 Quotes "Love is natural. Even the human race can't claim to be natural anymore."'Rhine (119)
5.0 out of 5 stars
My favourite dystopian novel!,
By
This review is from: Wither (Paperback)
I didn't want it to end! It was *that* good!!Wither has become my favourite dystopian novel. This book is a good lesson to show what can happen when scientists and geneticists try to play God: Their attempts to create a superior, disease-free race backfires when the offspring of the genetically modified individuals die prematurely, at the age of 20 years for females and 25 years for males. The first generation is determined to find a cure for the virus before the entire population is wiped out. To do so, they need more test subjects. Polygamy becomes the norm, and young girls of child-bearing age are snatched up by "Gatherers," who round the girls up to be brides for the sons of the first generation. The girls are expected to have as many children as they can to ensure the future survival of the human race. Even if a cure is not found before the brides die, their children will be studied and tested in an effort to find the antidote. Rhine, a 16 year-old teenager, is one of the unlucky brides who have been abducted by the Gatherers. She, along with two other girls (13 year-old Cecily and 18 year-old Jenna), are brought to the estate of wealthy Housemaster Vaughn. The young ladies are to be the sister brides of Vaughn's son, 21 year old Linden, whose first wife, 20 year-old Rose, is on her deathbed. Rhine realizes that the success of her intended escape depends on her ability to gain the trust of her husband and his domineering father. She must pretend to be enamoured by her husband and complacent with her lifestyle in the lap of luxury if she has any chance at all to flee. She will stop at nothing to find her way back to her twin brother, Rowan, the only family that she has left since their parents died. Rhine finds an unlikely ally in Gabriel, who is a servant in the mansion. I loved, loved, loved Wither! I found this to be a very dark and emotional read, because DeStefano touches on so many moral and ethical issues in the world that she has created: Genetic manipulation, polygamy, murder, kidnapping, teenage pregnancy, abuse. These are very mature topics for a YA novel. Vaughn was the perfect villain. Although DeStefano tries to create sympathy towards Linden by painting him as a victim of his father's machinations, I could not think of him as anything but a randy young man who revelled in bedding multiple wives! I was particularly bothered by his sexual relationship with 13 year-old Cecily. That's just...wrong. I found him nearly as loathsome as his father. Rhine is an intelligent, thoughtful, and gutsy young lady who knew that she had to play the game to get what she wanted. At times, I do not know how she managed to keep up the act of devoted wife. Her strength and determination are admirable qualities. And who could not help but love Gabriel? His innocence was heart-breaking, as well as his unswerving servitude to his masters. His moments with Rhine were so sweet, but I wanted more! The gorgeous cover depicting Rhine as the bird in the gilded cage was perfect. My fingers could not flip the pages of this book fast enough, and I reached the end to pause and reflect only for a moment before I dove into the next in the series, Fever. MY RATING: 5 stars!! It was superb! I loved it, and I will likely re-read it again in the future! You should definitely read it!
5.0 out of 5 stars
A unique dystopian - a great read!,
By
This review is from: Wither (Hardcover)
As part of my book buying ban of late December (i.e. We're traveling, I should save money for traveling, instead of buying books), I found myself in Wal-Mart staring at their selection of books. Being that it was around the holidays, I had frequenting the store often, always finding myself staring at the same selection of books, over and over. But this day was different. This was the day I saw Wither, a book that was on my wish list, gracing the shelves! Naturally, I had to buy it, take it home, and read it immediately (ignoring the oh-so-many books on my TBR ' uh ' bookcase(s)).I'm going to say this first, that after I finished reading the book, I immediately flocked to Goodreads to read some reviews, to see what other people had to say about it because I absolutely loved it and I was taken aback by how many people were caught up in the SCIENCE of it all. What? Call me ignorant, but as I read the book and learned how scientists have genetically engineered people so much that now males die at 25 and females at 20, I thought nothing of it. Actually, that's not true, I thought how COOL it was to have something different! I didn't analyze the explanations for this future dystopian world that DeStefano laid out for me. Instead, I took in the fiction of it all and found myself completely absorbed in this crazy book where females were sold for marriage, not to be the sole bride of their captor, but instead live in a polygamous marriage for the end of their (short) life. Am I wrong to have enjoyed such a book and NOT analyze it completely? I don't think so. In fact, I've seen movies with people who are constantly ripping apart the film saying, 'Oh, this wouldn't happen,' or, 'This isn't believable!' Of course not! It's FICTION! I enjoyed it and that's enough for me. I was completely transfixed of the story of Rhine as she's waiting, basically, for her life to end. I can't even imagine what that would be like, to have your life calculated to the year, knowing exactly when you're going to leave this earth. Of course, with the end of Wither, the reader is not left without Rhine. Instead, the book is set up for a sequel, which'at least to me'is awesome because I need to get more of the action! I really look forward to reading the next book in this series. I feel that Lauren DeStefano has a winner on her hands and I have my fingers crossed that her books to come are winners, too.
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