Oct 26, 2011

Book Review: WITHER

Title: WITHER
Author: Lauren DeStefano
Release Date: 03/22/2011
My Rating: 4/5-- I mostly enjoyed it.
Plot in One Word: Dystopian
Good if...you want something unique and dystopian
At age sixteen, Rhine Ellery has four years to live. Thanks to a botched effort to create a perfect race, all females live to be twenty, and males live to age twenty-five. While geneticists seek a miracle antidote, orphans roam the streets and polygamy abounds. After Rhine is kidnapped and sold as a bride, she is desperate to escape from her husband’s strange world, which includes a sinister father-in-law in search of the antidote and a slew of sister wives who are not to be trusted. On the cusp of her seventeenth birthday, Rhine attempts to flee—but what she finds is a society spiraling into anarchy.

My thoughts...
I very much enjoyed this novel.  The plot of a doomed future where all the new generations of children are dying off young was very original, very gripping, and very well executed.  It hooked me in right away as it was something I'd never seen in a ya-book before!  And I absolutely loved the characters and the dynamics between them.  Each relationship brought something special to the story.  SO there was this great plot and great characters and even a little romance mixed in...what I found lacking was the pacing.  It didn't really hurt things enough to ruin this story for me, just towards the middle things started to drag a bit for me.

Overall I really liked this novel...it's just a couple things annoyed me slightly.  I gave it a 4/5 because of those things.  If you want to read my rant about them...you can highlight the below text.  :)

Slight spoilers---highlight to see---
Was it just me or was this book kind of like a waiting game the whole book through?  Waiting for Rhine to finally escape the mansion she's being held captive it.  Once she develops the plan to escape it was like just hurry up and get on with it and escape already!  So, finally the end comes and things finally start happening, she escapes 3 pages away from the end...and then the book ends!  This wasn't a cliffhanger...not when the story just cuts off.  So really, this entire book was one very long beginning.
And one other thing.  It doesn't snow in Florida!!!!  Not like the blizzard at the end during their escape!  So maybe the world has changed because there is some reference to the mansion being 1000 years old...but if that's the case then you gotta let us know b/c all I could think is why is it snowing now after they just went through hurricane season!  I hate when authors make stuff up just for convenience.  Okay...end of rant.

If you liked WITHER; then you might also like...
DELIRIUM by Lauren Oliver
MATCHED by Ally Condie

Bottom Line:  Maybe.  Borrow it though.

2 comments:

Jenny said...

Yeah, this one just had too much crap that didn't make sense. At least you enjoyed it more than I did.

Uniquely Moi Books said...

I loved this book! It was just so different from some of the others out there. Although, If I could change it just a bit, I wish she would've given him a try instead of rejecting him all the time. I wish she would've stayed in the house longer.