ISBN: 9781442409057
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Pages: 358
By
age sixteen, Rhine Ellery has four years left to live. She can thank modern
science for this genetic time bomb. A botched effort to create a perfect race
has left all males with a lifespan of 25 years, and females with a lifespan of
20 years. Geneticists are seeking a miracle antidote to restore the human race,
desperate orphans crowd the population, crime and poverty have skyrocketed, and
young girls are being kidnapped and sold as polygamous brides to bear more
children. 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?
I
thoroughly enjoyed reading Wither by Lauren DeStefano! I really liked the
concept behind this dystopian tale, where rather than the characters benefitting
from the genetic experiment, they end up having to alter their society to cope
with their shorter lifespans! I also enjoyed how Wither was actually written,
it flowed well! My favourite characters were Gabriel and Rhine. Both of them were
confined to Linden’s mansion, although for different purposes. Rhine’s purpose was
to be a replacement for Linden’s first wife, whilst Gabriel’s role was to be a
servant. I love the scientific cover of Wither! The “circle arrows” on the
cover are not only quite modern and trendy, they also link up the different
elements within the cover to each other (and the story within!).
The cover on Wither is one of my favorites. I think it really captures the tone of the book. I enjoyed this book too.
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