Hello Rad Readerzzzz! So, I think the title says a bit about my complex feelings towards this book... Here is a little synopsis (spoiler free) of Wither (the first book in The Chemical Garden series).
In the world that Rhine Ellery lives in, she only has four years left to live even though she is only sixteen. As a byproduct of an unsuccessful attempt by scientists to create the perfect race, the lifespan of all men is now 25 and of women, 20. Nearly everyone is an orphan, crime and poverty have skyrocketed, and young girls are being kidnapped and sold to have more children in an attempt to continue the human race. Despite living her entire life paranoid and careful, Rhine gets kidnapped and promises herself that she will do anything to escape. Her "husband" is "in love" with her and because of his social position she is opened to a world of luxury and wealth that makes it hard for her to completely hate her new life. As she continues to live there she sees that she cannot trust anyone: her sister wives, her "father-in-law," who is a scientist desperate to find a cure (so much so that he has a stock pile of corpses in his basement to test on), and that isn't even half of her problems.
Before I begin I would like to say that yes, I am aware that numerous people loved this book. However, I did not.
Wither fans, you have been warned.
So, basically there was a lot of this book that was very bizarre. Even though I did go on for quite a while (in what you are about to read) about the things that I didn't like about it, there is a lot of good in it. There are a lot of interesting ideas that I haven't read before and risks that this author takes and I liked a lot of it, but I didn't like some of it. Honestly, the main problem that I had was a personal problem. It was too dark for me and I didn't like reading about girls that get kidnapped and married and have a bunch of twisted sister wives and in laws and all that junk. It was disturbing simply to me and possibly to you and for that reason, mainly, I couldn't enjoy this book. Sure, there were some plot holes here and there, but there is in every book. Sure there was some poor development, but the same can be said for very many books. Often in series like these they develop as they go on. As I have only read the first book I know that I don't like the development of it now. I didn't like this book, no. However, I wouldn't understand if people hated it. Although it is definitely not good, it is not terrible. It gives me none of the vibes I felt when I was reading Matched by Ally Condie, and that was terrible.
The clear complex emotions I felt to this reading experience is why I am a little confused as to how to take on this review.
Okayyyy, so, I think this a perfect example of how dystopian young adult novels go wrong: riddled with tropes, reaches, and lack of realism.
I know that realism is a bit of an odd thing to criticize this book for, considering it is about a world where people only live to 20-25, but when I say realism, I mean whether or not I can believe in this story. Can I believe that when people know that they will die at 25, they will care more about continuing the human race and showing up to political events than living their life to the fullest? When I read about the crime rate and the life span and Rhine's situation, I knew this would be an intense dystopian book, but I also thought it'd have a unique spin to it. I thought the characters could have an interesting edge, risky lifestyle, daring personalities, because they knew that their lives would be short. Exciting personalities to juxtapose a horrid situation. In all reality I think that if everyone found out they would live about a quarter of a life, they would wan to have fun with what they have, not take things so seriously. For on and on in this book it seemed like that characters were just sitting around. They have no time! I was bewildered. It was like DeStefano just threw in the life span aspect to try to find a new way to make obvious that this world is dystopian, find a new way to scream at the reader that people are treated poorly in the future. We get it!! She could have done something with the life span story line but instead she let it flop, and even more so, made the pacing of her story seem even slower than it actually was. Tisk tisk tisk.
As far as reaching goes, this circles back to the idea that if these kids can only live to 25, they wouldn't care about having children, they would probably want nothing to do with it, nothing to do with science or education. They want to have fun! Also, even if they don't want to just have fun, these people will be dead in a couple of years, why in the world would they want a child!? Another reach was the idea of these "first generation-ers." They were essentially the generation that lived before they could be affected by what science had done, they were born before the perfect race was attempted, so they will live a normal life span. It created a cool kind of dynamic where the only people that are alive are either extremely old or very young. What I found was lame was that they didn't have any real role. Wouldn't the young people go against them for destroying the world? If not, wouldn't the young people listen to them because they'd been around the longest? Nothing! They just... kind of... well, existed. That is not what I am looking for in an exciting novel.
This book is just very unbelievable. Who is making these people work if they are all about to die; who is kidnapping the girls; wouldn't they want wives themselves? Wouldn't they want to do something besides kidnapping them? Why are they killing them if they need to have kids to keep the human race going? When they killed all the girls that weren't chosen to be married off, I was shocked. Not in a cool way, like a crazy twist type of shock. I was shocked as in, how are these people so stupid!? None of these questions were even answered at a surface level.
The world creation wasn't really my main problem with the book as I was reading it. It did take away from the story, but not soooo much, and for as long as I have gone on about it, it wasn't that distracting. It was more of an after thought once I started writing this post. My main problem with it was that the actual plot of this story was very... weird.
The direction that it seems to head in is just bizarre and fairly problematic. Rhine is definitely experiencing some Stockholm Syndrome which is an interesting take to go in, and honestly it would be very cool if the author took it in the right direction, and approached it in the right way. However she did not. Rhine seems to know how wrong it is that she doesn't completely hate the house or her husband. She knows that she should and she hates herself for not. I recognize that, I just didn't like reading about it. I know that the actual idea of what is happening to Rhine is supposed to be sinister, dark, and twisted. However, the fact of the matter is that in dealing with a topic as crazy dark as this, I feel like it needs to be properly done. Having it as a subplot doesn't do it justice. This is a massive idea that deserves the respect of good thinking, good writing. That of course is not to say that DeStefano wrote this book poorly. For as much as I didn't like the story itself I liked the way it was told. When I say that it needs to be written well, I mean that the reader has to understand it. It needs to be clear but not an information dump. I couldn't understand what Rhine was feeling. I was just thinking "why don't you just hate him if he is the reason why you will probably never be free again." That is not what the reader should be thinking in this type of scenario. If her situation was properly told I would understand Stockholm syndrome from her point of view. I would understand what she was going through. That doesn't need to mean I agree with it. Often times I disagree with what I understand in books. That is just how things are. However, I feel like I just disagreed with Rhine because I didn't understand what she was going through. Clearly there was a lot that she had to deal with but we only got an outside perspective really. She seemed bland even though she had to have had so much going on inside her.
Perhaps this is more developed in later books.
Yes, there is my rather confusing hot take on Wither by Lauren DeStefano. My review is confusing and I'm sorry but this is the best I could do! I'm confused myself on how I feel on this book! As far as recommendations go, I gave it 2/5 stars on GoodReads. I didn't love it. I didn't strongly dislike it. Take that how you will. Read it if you want. I am indifferent. Form your own opinions my rad readers!!
- C8 ;)
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