-

-

Follow Yung Lions

“Every wolf ‘s and lion’s howl / Raises from Hell a human soul.”

Saturday, January 29, 2011

Wither by Lauren Destefano

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 limted time she has left.

First:  When I opened the package from S&S I was in awe!  This cover is amazing!

 A splash of horror, a pinch of sci-fi and a sprinkle of forbidden romance (my favorite) are all the ingredients used in Wither.

In a world where girls die at the age of 20, and males at the age of 25, the population is deseperate to keep the human race going, even if that means participating in human trafficking.  Rhine is taken from her twin Rowan, to become one of the 3 brides of Linden Ashby, a very shy but well mannered man.  On the other hand, Linden's father, Vaughn is the complete opposite.  He was the creepy, evil vilain that terrorized Rhine.  And then came Gabriel, he was the wives' attendant but throughout the novel, him and Rhine began to form a connection.

In the mansion, there are 3 wives, Rhine, Jenna and Cecily.  Cecily is the youngest, eager to please her new husband and Jenna is just about the opposite.  She is the eldest of the 3, meaning she is the closest to dying, but she also holds a personal vendetta against Linden.  Rhine becomes close to her sister wives, but she never forgets her main goal: to escape and get back to Rowan.

Once I started reading the book, I was pretty much hooked.  Lauren Destefano's writing is pretty good and sometimes, even poetic.  The story was dark and hopeless, but somehow, I found myself smirking at certain moments in the novel.  Even though most of the characters are going to die in a few years, some sooner than others, I was very attatched to them.  There was always that little voice in my head that said "well it doesn't really matter does it, Rhine is supposed to die in about 4 years." But the characters were very well written and pushed that little voice away from my mind.  But although the characters were very well developped, I couldn't really picture them.

I loved the story, but sometimes I questioned what was going on.  There were certain holes in the story that kind of annoyed me since they pretty much could have solved the majority of Rhine's problems.  The ending was also kind of pretty obvious.  It all pretty much happened the way I excpected it to.

Unfortunately, we didn't get to experience much of Rhine and Gabriel's relationship, his character was kind of weak in a sense that I could forget him at times.  Throughout the novel, Rhine keeps expressing her thoughts about escaping and I kind of just wanted to scream at her "THEN DO IT RHINE!"  Good gosh. 

But even though everything happened the way I excpected it to go, I was still rooting for Rhine and anxiously reading to find out what would happen next.  Destefano's writing had my heart pounding at times because of the situations and decisions that Rhine had to face.

To be honest, despite the many flways of this book, I loved it.  It was somewhat of a mix of various YA books.  Wither is definitely not to be missed!

Even though Wither hasn't even be released, I am anxiosuly awaiting its sequel.  I really do wonder where Destefano will take the next book!  Because of the various flaws in the storyline that annoyed me, I won't be giving Wither the Premium Moody Seal of Approval, but it definetly deserves the GOLD!

You can check out Lauren Destefano at her website here

4 comments:

  1. I agree, the cover is so beautiful! And wow, you're review really makes me want to read it. I'm screaming "Release it! Release the freakin' book!!!" Ahhhh ^_^

    ReplyDelete
  2. Great review. I like that you pointed out the good and the bad even though you liked it overall.

    ReplyDelete
  3. wow...the cover is awesome! And the story itself sounds very interesting^^
    I'll check it out! Thx for the review.

    xoxo

    ps: thx for stopping by and for the follow...I'm following back!

    ReplyDelete
  4. I had the same thoughts that you did and just finished my review. It was fantastic most of the time but there was some background that I just wasn't buying.

    ReplyDelete

Spit it out