Scootsa1000′s #CBR4 Review 48 & 49: Wither and Fever by Lauren DeStefano
Wither was a book that kept popping up on my radar. A few Cannonball reviews, and some recommendations from Amazon based on past purchases. I wasn’t dying to read it, but last week when I walked in to my library, it was literally the first thing I saw when I opened the door (the YA section of our lovely little library is directly inside the door). So I figured, why not?
Wither tells the story of Rhine Ellery, a 16 year-old identical twin living with her brother Rowan in future Manhattan. In Rhine’s world, a terrible virus kills all females at 20 and all males at 25, so beautiful young women of child-bearing age have become a precious commodity. Rhine is OF COURSE kidnapped and brought against her will to become one of many brides for a young, rich man in Florida. And, you guys, SHE MISSES HER BROTHER SO MUCH. And she just has to get back to New York, no matter what.
I really didn’t care for Rhine, or anything that happened in her world. I was more interested in the little tidbits of information that were casually tossed throughout the story about when the virus started, how it could potentially be stopped, and what happened to the rest of the world. Rhine has been taught that the rest of the world no longer exists, but sometimes the story hints that JUST MAYBE that isn’t true.
When I took the book out, I had no idea that Wither was the first in a trilogy. The second installment, Fever, was also available, so I read that one, too (give me a break, we had a hurricane, so pickings were slim!).
Fever was even less interesting than Wither. Rhine and her friend Gabriel are on the run, trying to get back to New York. They get caught up in some crazy prostitution/carnival ring that takes WAY too many pages to get away from, but does give them some new and somewhat interesting characters to interact with.
I don’t know when book #3 comes out, and I”m not sure I’ll read it when it does. I’d rank these two somewhere above Twilight, but below the Delirium books. Meh.
Cannonball Read IV 
Below Delirium? Yikes.
Yup. Yikes, indeed.
I got Wither super cheap when Borders went out of business, I kind of loved the cover. I wasn’t very impressed either…. it really didn’t add anything new to the dysptopian genre. And…
what really bugged me was that the girls who didn’t get selected all got murdered. I mean really? If everyone dies by the age of 25 and you’re trying to procreate and keep the population alive, wouldn’t you, I don’t know, keep those girls around for awhile?! Stupid.
I’m glad you read Fever and summed that up for me, now I don’t have to bother reading it to see if it improved.
DUDE. I totally put a spoiler warning up there and they ate it! SPOILERS! SPOILERS!
Yeah, the girls-shot-in-the-van thing really didn’t work for me.
But hey, it kept me occupied during the storm when we lost power, so there’s that.
I could write a blurb for the back of the book “GREAT TO READ WHEN YOU DON’T HAVE POWER AND YOUR KINDLE ISN’T CHARGED AND THERE ARE NO OTHER OPTIONS!”