Wither Review & Giveaway!!

Wither by Lauren DeStefano

publisher: Simon & Schuster

release date: March 22, 2011

hardcover, 356 pages

intended audience: Young adult

rating:



source: from publisher for honest review

description: 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.

Review: Mesmerizing. That is the best way to describe this one. Simply mesmerizing from beginning to end. DeStefano gives us a frightening glimpse into a horrifying, twisted future of mankind, where all disease and human health problems have been rectified, but at the hefty cost of about 70-80 years of our lifespan. What would it be like if everyone lived perfectly healthy lives, but only until their early twenties when they succumb to a vicious virus much like tuberculosis. Society has pretty much crumbled, most children are raised in orphanages, and all females, even as young as 13, live in danger of being kidnapped and sold into prostitution or forced into marriage. This was a dark and gritty tale, definitely hard to stomach at times.

Rhine, our protagonist, was brave and determined in a horrible situation. She's been kidnapped and forced into a polygamist marriage, living in a huge mansion with a grieving husband, his mysterious father who will do anything to find a cure, two other wives and several servants. All three wives are given anything they wish, but their freedom, of course. They are even confined to a single floor of the mansion, unless escorted. As the story goes along, the lines begin to blur between right and wrong, and it becomes obvious that no one is who they first seem to be.

I loved the development of the relationships between the three "sister wives". Its shift back and forth between a protective sisterly bond to a struggle for power. Each girl has a very different relationship with their husband defined by who they are, what they've been through, and what they want to achieve. For Rhine, almost immediately after she arrives, begins to devise a plan of escape, and despite everything that happens while she is there, she never looses sight of that goal---to get back to her twin brother and a life of freedom. I think the thing that disturbed me most was the youngest wife, Cicely. She was so young, so deluded and naive in her attitude toward being kidnapped and forced to marry at 13, it was painful to read.

A fascinating, heart-wrenching read that starts, literally, in pitch darkness and ends with the smallest glimmer of hope...I can't wait to see what the future holds for this series!

Visit Lauren DeStefano's site here.

Purchase Wither at: Amazon • BN.com • BookDepository

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