Review- Wither

Title: Wither

Author: Lauren DeStefano

Publisher: Simon & Schuster Children's Publishing

Rating: 4/5

Find it here: Amazon, Goodreads

Blurb:

What if you knew exactly when you would die?

Thanks to modern science, every human being has become a genetic ticking time bomb-males only live to the age of twenty-five, and females only live to the age of 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 content with then 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. When the help of Gabriel, a servant Rhine is growing dangerously attracted to, Rhine attempts to break free, in the limited time she has left.

My thoughts:

I was so excited to start reading this book! Almost every blog I read was giving it raving reviews and pretty much convincing me that it was one of the best reads of 2011. Not only was this appealing, but the cover is just absolutely gorgeous! I also don't but books in hardcover because I have the worst time keeping taking care of the jackets so that really tells you how amazing I believed this book to be. I'm not saying that the book was bad and that I was completely disappointed. Don't get me wrong here! I liked it.

It is a very unique story about what happens when we think that we can get rid of all the genetic diseases and pretty much genetically engineer a perfect population. An entire disease-free generation is created and now their children are suffering from an unknown virus that starts to effect females at age twenty and males at age twenty five. No one from the new generation has survived this virus and scientists are frantically working for a cure. Rhine is kidnapped and forced to marry Linden so that they can have children and hopefully Linden's father will find the cure to save their lives.

It took me a little while to read it because it was kind of slow in the beginning. It had a few exciting scenes and I started to get interested in what was going on with the story and wanting to find out what is really going on in the basement. Overall, I really liked the book and I'm looking forward to reading the rest of the trilogy!