Wither by Lauren DeStefano

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.



This is possibly my favorite dystopian book. Wither is breathtaking. It is hard to read and hard to process, it is also amazing and full of beauty. Lauren DeStefano needs to publish more books fast because I don’t think I can wait a year for the next book in the Chemical Garden series to come out. At first look, Wither is just a gorgeous cover that you can’t help but stare at. But once you start reading it, it becomes so much more.
I risked being late for school because I was up reading this book into the wee hours of the morning. Lauren DeStefano has taken readers into a world that they won’t be able to forget.
She wrote this book with romance, heartbreak, grief, and so much more. The whole plot of this book amazes me. Not only do the people die at a scary young age, but what happens to the girls is really heartbreaking. Wither was hard to read, but I couldn’t stop myself.

FTC- ALA Midwinter.