Wither
Books | Juvenile Fiction / Family / Marriage & Divorce
3.9
(938)
Lauren DeStefano
What if you knew exactly when you’d die? The first book of The Chemical Garden Trilogy.By age sixteen, Rhine Ellery has four years left to live. A botched effort to create a perfect race has left all males born with a lifespan of 25 years, and females a lifespan of 20 years—leaving the world in a state of panic. Geneticists seek 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 sold as a bride, she vows to do all she can to escape. Yet 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 has no way to communicate to her twin brother that she is safe and alive. 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?
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Author
Lauren DeStefano
Pages
358
Publisher
Simon and Schuster
Published Date
2011-12-06
ISBN
1442409061 9781442409064
Ratings
Google: 4
Community ReviewsSee all
"One of my favorite dystopian fiction series."
Jamie Publicover
"SOOO GOODDDDDD"
Hanna Hamid Mubarak
"#dystopian #youngadult "
Vicki S.
"Loved this tale, I mean there could have been more of an ending just to heal our hearts but it wasnt bad. You just have to make up your own ending. "
Trinity Moore
"This book came with a very high recommendation but when I got into it I was really unsure. The plot was interesting but also really strange but since I love dystopia and utopia I continued on. The writing style kind of bugged me because it went back and forth between the past and the present in the same paragraph, and was very unclear. There was also a great lack of dialogue which made for a lot of description and can be very exhausting to read. I ended up enjoying the book and story anyways despite being awfully weirded out by the polygamist marriage to young girls and forced choices. I thought the plot moved kind of slowly for having the part about Rhine and Gabriel running away in the summary since that didn't happen until the last twenty pages. By the end though, I was pretty attached to the story and want to read the other books."
Annee N. Grayson
"I actually picked this book by pure random at the book store and I don't regret it, it was a great read."
Montana
"This book has just driven me nuts in the most polite way.<br/><br/>The ending felt..sort of abrupt. I don't know why. And I just can't get past the fact that she never just..told Linden about her life. About the truth. About the fact that Rhine had a brother, that Jenna's sisters were murdered, that all the girls were kidnapped and the rejects were discarded. I can't get past the fact that if he'd just known the reality that he would have made changes. That he'd have been horrified. And there was really no reason NOT to tell him. Vaughn couldn't have done anything about it once Linden knew. And that really, really bothers me. And the book took way too much suspension of disbelief -- so she's first wife but they've never consummated? O.o Really? And no details about the virus at all.<br/><br/>Calling this A Handmaid's Tale for kids is a good comparison, but A Handmaid's Tale took very little suspension of disbelief -- that's what made it so frightening. This was just frustrating.<br/>"
Amanda Ebbutt
"I couldn't help but be drawn in by such a great storyline. It was different from any book I've read. The virus that is plaguing man kind is such terrible thing and we experience its devastating effects for the first time along with Rhine.<br/><br/>I think this was flawless writing. We get back stories but the memories don't break up the story line, but instead we get some great insight into Rhine's life before becoming a wife and what it is that she so desperately clings on to. Truthfully, I wasn't expecting it to be this dark and a bit creepy. We don't know everything at the end of this and I'm glad the author isn't spelling everything out just yet. It leaves us hanging with a bit of mystery at the end and wondering just what is in store for later books. <br/><br/>I just loved this. I was enthralled from the first word and I couldn't put it down. I will be waiting impatiently for the next book. Very promising series that I look forward to reading!"
Aimee Gibson
"I am reading this book right now and I haven't been able to put it down, I found it in my school library and I am so glad I was there in the library that day to be able to find this book."
Isabella Martinez-Miller
"read this book in high school i loved it so much "
Ashley Myers