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Wither The Chemical Garden Trilogy Lauren DeStefano Books

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Wither The Chemical Garden Trilogy Lauren DeStefano Books

Genre: YA Dystopia, 1st person
Age: 14+ (sexual and adult situations)
Favourite quote:
“Fate, I think, is a thief.”

Wither read more like a memoir of a wife in a polygamous marriage than a dystopian novel.

It wasn’t the arranged marriage trope—I actually have a guilty pleasure with those. And it wasn’t the polygamy—I’m open to all forms of love and relationships. It was the writing style that I did not like.

The writing was just so basic. Blunt. Shallow. Nothing about it pulled me in. I didn’t feel anything for the characters and the plot was dull.

Here’s an example of what I mean by the blunt, one dimensional writing (these are not quotes, but my perception as examples):

We arrived at the house. I was given a room. I slept in the bed. The next morning there was breakfast on a tray. I wasn’t hungry. I stayed in the bed.

It just feels like statements rather than a flowing tale. And it left me very disconnected to the entire story and the characters.

I wanted to give up on this but I powered through hoping that something interesting would actually happen. But it’s just the boring and dull way the plot is executed that I felt that nothing happened at all.

So that even when the book ended on an actual cliff hanger it just wasn’t gripping enough to make me care to continue on.

Another mention is that this is labelled as dystopia but the setting feels completely contemporary. Which is a total turn off for fantasy readers. There isn’t some awesome post apocalyptic world and nothing seems different from the real world. I wouldn’t even consider this Urban Fantasy. Honestly it’s like I said, like a memoir or a contemporary.

Disappointing because the premise could have been something amazing.


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Wither The Chemical Garden Trilogy Lauren DeStefano Books Reviews

This came out during the dystopia hype (which actually might still be going on, but anyway), so I didn’t really have any high hopes for how good it would be — I tend to be cautious towards really popular books, since I’ve been burned a few times by following the hype. p However, even years later, it still seemed interesting to me, so I decided to at least skim it and see what it was about before outright deciding not to read it.

I have to say, Wither is a lot better than I expected it to be. I think there are a few logical holes as to how a society like this would have developed from the problem of short lifespans, but that aside, it’s actually quite a well thought out story about a girl in a desperate situation who tries to win back her freedom. The story itself dragged a bit, but I’m chalking that up to it being the first of a series and hopefully now that the worldbuilding is done, we can get into some really in-depth, complex looks at the characters and the society they live in within the next books of the series.

On the bright side however, the characters are well done and I loved learning more about them and learning how their lives fit into this strange world as a whole, and what their attitudes said about the world they’re living in. I also thought that DeStefano did an amazing job portraying Rhine’s internal conflict, where she needed to show that she was buying into her new life in order to win her freedom, but then felt guilty for maybe buying into it a little too much. Very, very well done on those counts.

While it’s not on a must-read list or even a definitely recommend list, it is interesting and I want to make a point to read the sequels to see how this series turns out. If it sounds good to you, then I will say that I enjoyed myself, so maybe you will too.
In Wither, through genetic experimentation, humans have eradicated the diseases of the twenty-first century. No one suffers from cancer, AIDS, or any other illness that plagued humanity before. A generation of nearly immortal humans were conceived in laboratories and everyone was born healthy. Unfortunately, when this generation had children, they discovered that the men died at the age of twenty-five, and the women died at the age of twenty. Since then, the doctors and scientists have been frantically searching for an antidote but have been unsuccessful and many people have given up hope. Due to the early deaths, there are a lot of orphaned children, a high rate of poverty, and society has broken down. Also contributing to this situation, are the effects of global warming, pollution, and the aftereffects of a third world war. In short, everything that could go wrong has gone wrong.

Rhine Ellery lives in Manhattan with her twin brother, Rowan. Their parents are dead and they depend on each other for survival. They go out during the day looking for work, and at night take turns sleeping so they can guard against thieves and other intruders. One day, Rhine goes out and is captured by “gatherers”. Gatherers kidnap teenage girls to sell as brides to the wealthy people who want them to bear children.

Rhine, who is sixteen, is sold as a bride and forced into a polygamous marriage with two other girls, one younger and one older. Although her new husband seems to be kind and offers her everything she could ever want, Rhine longs to be free and united with her brother. Her new father-in-law proves to be a dangerous man who controls and uses his son and his son’s wives as puppets. Rhine is aware of the man’s lies and is deathly afraid of him, giving her another reason to want to be free. She befriends one of her husband’s servants and they plan an escape, but they have to be careful to not get caught or they will face the wrath of Rhine’s father-in-law.

I really don’t know what to say about this book. I didn’t hate it, but I didn’t really like it either. It wasn’t that it was dull or slow-moving, I did think it was interesting and I was able to read the whole book without becoming so annoyed that I had to put it down. But, the premise was just too much to swallow for me.

Obviously this is a dystopian book, and bad things have always happened in dystopian books to completely screw everything up. That’s to be expected, but DeStefano threw everything but the kitchen sink in on this one. The ice caps have melted, the weather is dangerous and unpredictable, there’s been a nuclear war, the air and the water is polluted, the world geography has drastically changed leaving no continent intact other than North America, and the scientists have horribly botched up the human life cycle. Wow. For me, that was a bit much.

There were also details in Wither that the author had obviously given no real thought to, given her premise. Most of the Earth is now underwater, but Manhattan survived? As well as Florida? Also, this disease or whatever that caused the women to die at twenty and the men to die at twenty-five was repeatedly referred to as a “virus”. A virus is something like the flu, it’s contagious, it doesn’t automatically kick in at a certain time. What happened in Wither seems to be to be more like a genetic abnormality or defect to me, yet they repeatedly insist on calling it a virus. Even the father-in-law, who was a doctor! It annoyed me. I couldn’t really get too attached to any of the characters; they just weren’t well-developed enough. I didn’t have a chance to get a good idea of what Rhine was like before she was taken. She was obviously unhappy after she was taken, but what was so wonderful about her life before, other than her brother? Nobody wants to be held against their will, but I wanted to know more about what she was fighting for.

I will say that I thought the story moved at a good pace, and despite the numerous things that annoyed me, I was interested to see what would happen next. Wither just wasn’t for me though, and I hate that because I really wanted to like it.
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Genre YA Dystopia, 1st person
Age 14+ (sexual and adult situations)
Favourite quote
“Fate, I think, is a thief.”

Wither read more like a memoir of a wife in a polygamous marriage than a dystopian novel.

It wasn’t the arranged marriage trope—I actually have a guilty pleasure with those. And it wasn’t the polygamy—I’m open to all forms of love and relationships. It was the writing style that I did not like.

The writing was just so basic. Blunt. Shallow. Nothing about it pulled me in. I didn’t feel anything for the characters and the plot was dull.

Here’s an example of what I mean by the blunt, one dimensional writing (these are not quotes, but my perception as examples)

We arrived at the house. I was given a room. I slept in the bed. The next morning there was breakfast on a tray. I wasn’t hungry. I stayed in the bed.

It just feels like statements rather than a flowing tale. And it left me very disconnected to the entire story and the characters.

I wanted to give up on this but I powered through hoping that something interesting would actually happen. But it’s just the boring and dull way the plot is executed that I felt that nothing happened at all.

So that even when the book ended on an actual cliff hanger it just wasn’t gripping enough to make me care to continue on.

Another mention is that this is labelled as dystopia but the setting feels completely contemporary. Which is a total turn off for fantasy readers. There isn’t some awesome post apocalyptic world and nothing seems different from the real world. I wouldn’t even consider this Urban Fantasy. Honestly it’s like I said, like a memoir or a contemporary.

Disappointing because the premise could have been something amazing.