- Yet another case where the cover strikes again.
- Big, big fan of dystopia – that’s one thing this year has done to me.
- The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood (Adult)
- Delirium by Lauren Oliver
- The Forest of Hands and Teeth by Carrie Ryan
Summary from GoodReads:
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.
My Review (Spoiler-Free):
2010 introduced me to the world of dystopia. I’ve read everything from George Orwell’s 1984 to books still due to come out, such as Lauren Oliver’s Delirium. There have been some good, and some not-so-good (although both listed were fantastic!) and Wither is another book to add to that good list.
Books with such mortal characters, the “ticking time tomb” talked about in the summary of this book, have a way of weaseling in and getting a grip on the reader before he or she knows what’s happened. That’s what Wither did to me – just a few pages in and I was walking around the house with my nose buried in the book, unable to put it down. I devoured this book and I’m hungry for the next one – unfortunately I have a while to wait for it.
I do have some small complaints – things that bugged me about the relationship between Rhine and a few people in their lives, things that, if Rhine’s story hadn’t been as powerful as it was, wouldn’t hold up. But Lauren DeStefano did a remarkable job of giving Rhine her voice and of manipulating her readers emotions with the turmoil in this story.
2011 is shaping up to be quite the year for dystopian fiction and I’m quite looking forward to it. Wither is a great contribution to the list!
Check out these review(s):
