Book Review: Wither by Lauren DeStefano

Once in a while, you read a book that gets under your skin so relentlessly, it stays firmly in your thoughts and refuses to be dislodged even by the hordes of books you read after it.  Wither was such a book for me. I was initially intrigued by the premise (because of some medical tinkering, all females now die at 20 and all males at 25), then sucked in by the stark first chapter (our main character, Rhine, is trapped in a van with  many other girls, waiting to be sold or shot), and slowly but surely made to care deeply about Rhine and her sister wives and empathize with them even when I didn't always agree with them.

See, Rhine ends up at a cushy mansion in Florida, married to gentle soul Linden along with the older Jenna and younger Cicely. Despite the luxury afforded her, Rhine has the powerful urge to return to the hovel she occupied with her brother in New York, constantly hounded by human traffickers and bombarded by rats. Jenna won't give her captors her heart, but she's resigned to living out the short time she has left in relative safety and comfort.  Only youngest wife Cicely fully embraces her new situation and can't understand why Rhine would ever want anything more.

There are few highly dramatic set pieces here, yet even the quietest of scenes chilled me and thrilled me. An amazing accomplishment. 5 Zombie Chickens.

WITHER comes out March 22, 2011.  Find out more about it at the author's website.