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Summary:

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. Will Rhine be able to escape–before her time runs out?

Review:

Reading WITHER is an interesting experience. I felt a little like Rhine– the prose and pretty dresses and lavish details seemed intoxicating at a glance, but there was something off about it. Something that didn’t quite make sense, didn’t let me fully immerse myself in the story.

The writing is gorgeous and almost effortless. It’s almost impossible to put down, despite the fact that nothing outside of Rhine’s daily life in the mansion happens. You could lose yourself in DeStefano’s writing, and completely ignore the fact that a lot of things don’t make sense– and by the end of the novel I was so captivated that it almost didn’t matter. Almost. I still have a lot of unanswered questions about the logic behind the dystopic elements of the world.

The first thing that seemed contradictory was the fact that the population is dying out, and by all means young, fertile girls would be having as many children as possible. And yet they’d still shoot a van full of girls, just because they didn’t make the cut for the wealthy? Those gunshots are brought up again and again in the story, and they really demonstrate the ‘danger’ of Rhine’s society. But it seemed like they were just there for shock value.

The Governor’s mansion seemed almost anachronistic in this futuristic world. It felt like I was reading a Victorian novel, until Rhine sees a glimpse of the outside world– and everything is carrying on as usual. There are movie theatres and bright city streets, beaches and harbors. But Rhine’s childhood memories make it seem like she’s living in a chaotic, scavenger post-apocalyptic world. I’m not sure if it’s deliberate or if they just couldn’t decide on how this society actually works.

World-building issues aside, the characters are marvelous. Three-dimensional characters can be pushed aside for a shocking premise like this, but WITHER surprised me by having a brilliantly vivid cast. I thought Gabriel and Linden were a little flat, but Rhine’s fellow sister wives, Jenna and Cecily, were so well-written. Cecily is polarizing– she practically scared me with her enthusiasm for her situation, and she can be outright horrible. But she also had my sympathy in other scenes… she was never out of ‘character’, just a girl with lots of different emotions. And Jenna was my favorite character. There’s a lot of showing, not telling with the characterization– just the way I like it.

WITHER is a standout in the wave of dystopian novels to hit shelves. DeStefano isn’t afraid to kill off characters and has gift for writing strong characters, but the society she created just didn’t make sense to me. Still, this is beautifully written, elegant, even. I can’t wait for the sequel.

Score: 4 out of 5

The Cover: One of the best covers I’ve ever seen. The rotated font and the geometric patterns are so unlike any other cover I’ve seen; it’s obvious that a lot of care and detail went into crafting this design. Score: 5 out of 5

March 22nd 2011 by Simon & Schuster Children’s Publishing | 356pp

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