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Monday, June 30, 2014

Alive and Thriving

Wither
By Lauren Destefano

Rhine lives with a death sentence – after the world is cured of cancer, the next generation born lives extremely short lives. Women live to twenty and men to twenty-five. She is kidnapped and sold as a wife to a rich young man who lives in a sheltered fantasy world. All Rhine wants to do is escape, but she is trapped in a mansion, forced to marry someone whom she does not love.

While an interesting concept, this book is limited to a singular setting – the mansion – which makes the realities of this cruel world difficult to explore. We are only given Rhine's perspective and she is someone who thinks. Perhaps I wasn't too captured by the story because it felt like her thought processes were information dumps: a great amount of back-story told at once. I admit to skimming over them often. However, when there was dialogue, I wanted to know more.

I thoroughly enjoyed the main character, she had the practicality to know that she needed to do something about her situation. It wasn't all cream puffs and pretty dresses. Her brother kept her tethered to the desire to return to home. And too, the secondary characters I enjoyed as well. This would be considered a character driven novel, as opposed to plot driven.

It moves slowly and all the same I enjoyed this light read.

3/5 STARS

Classroom: Content not appropriate.

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