Wither

Details:
Title: Wither (Chemical Garden Trilogy #1)
Author: Lauren DeStefano
Publisher: Simon & Schuster Children's Publishing
Pub Date: March 22, 2011
Genre:Dystopia
Rating: Get this book immediately and begin reading

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 limited time she has left. -- Goodreads

My Thoughts:
I was incredibly excited about Wither; I love dystopias and this one just sounded amazing. It was completely amazing and I can't wait to read the rest of the trilogy and see what will happen to Rhine next.

The writing is amazing; Lauren can really craft a story. The book grabbed me right from the beginning and kept me interested the whole way through. The characters, the plot, the world were all interesting and well crafted. It's so important for the worlds in futuristic dystopias to be understandable and well-developed. Lauren did a wonderful job of introducing the world and the conditions of this futuristic society throughout the book without adding long descriptions of the world or confusing the reader by not adding enough backstory.

The characters -- good and bad -- are all complex. I really liked Rhine because even in her horrible circumstances she held on to who she is and did whatever she could to be herself. I even felt for Linden (he may appear to be the bad guy, but it's not that simple) and him to have something more than the life his father has forced him into.

Wither is one of the best dystopias I've read in a while; I loved everything about it.

I've already talked about how much I love this cover, but I have to say it again: it is so beautiful.