Saturday, June 25, 2011

Wither (Chemical Garden #1)

Title: Wither (Chemical Garden #1)
Author: Lauren DeStefano
Rating: 4.8/5
Summary: 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.
My Thoughts: Without a doubt, Wither is one of the most powerful YA dystopia reads ever! The plot is gripping, thought provoking, and disturbing. There were a couple of things about Wither that made it stand out for me. Unlike the typical dystopian YA novels that are popping up all over the place, here we have a story that isn’t so much focused on the demise of society but on the lives of these three girls, their husband and what the society and older generations have forced them to become. The story is slow but never lags. It really swept me up, it’s one of those books I ended up thinking about even when I wasn’t reading. The way that DeStefano wrapped past and present, and even future, together creates a beautifully, heart wrenching story that leaves me wanting so much more!  I would highly recommend this book to other lovers of YA fiction! 

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