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We all know that underneath even the most seemingly perfect utopia lies a hidden dystopia. At the very least, it is a false utopia. Lauren DeStefano starts her utopian series, The Internment Chronicles, with a Perfect Ruin.
In Morgan's world on Internment, marriages are arranged, people listen to the will of the king, and no one gets too close to the edge. Attempting to go over the edge of Internment can result in death, if you are lucky. Jumpers who survived are scarred physically and emotionally from their attempts to leave Internment. Internment is a city high in the sky where the citizens aren't allowed to see the ground. Saved by the Gods in the sky, before Morgan's generation, Internment was created as an act of mercy. Now they must abide by the rules of Internment to keep life sustained and happy. That includes accepting your betrothal the king arranges, only having children when your number in the queue is called, and accepting all decisions by the government without complaint. This sounds easy enough, but there are always exceptions to the rules, like Morgan's sister-in-law Alice who accidentally got pregnant out of turn and was forced to lose the pregnancy. Or Morgan's brother Lex who tried to jump and suffers the consequences. Or Morgan's friend Pen who finds her betrothed completely insufferable. But Morgan is happy with her betrothal, and she never thought to question the decisions of the king, until she meets a murderer.
Crime is unheard of on Internment, but when a young girl is murdered, her betrothed is blamed. Morgan's father, a patrolman, claims they have apprehended the boy, but Morgan has seen him around the city, hiding from everyone. Weirder still, she finds him with Amy, the dead girl's sister. Why would a little girl be hiding with and protecting the man who murdered her sister? Convinced the boy, Judas, is innocent, she hides her encounters with him carefully, even from Basil, her betrothed. Morgan becomes the object of concern to the king's people, but she is careful to keep the secrets of her family. But in a city the size of Internment, it isn't easy to keep secrets. Or is it?
I struggled with DeStefano's Wither series, so I was skeptical going into this story. I loved Wither, but then the series took a nosedive after the first book. When I started Perfect Ruin, I have to admit it felt a little slow and confusing at first. It is hard to weave a utopia, which we all know is bound to be flawed in the end, but you still want to it appear to be perfect on the surface. Lois Lowry did this effortlessly in The Giver, and honestly, DeStefano did a pretty good job too, but it felt a little forced at times. Not quite effortless. But not a bad attempt either! So while the story was a little slow at first, it quickly picked up and by the end, I was devouring the story. My biggest concern, however, is that The Internment Chronicles will follow the same Wither path and lose steam after a pretty good first book. Hopefully this series will benefit from the experience DeStefano gained from her first series.
The concept of Internment was really fascinating, but there are some holes in its existence that I assume further books will clear up. I loved the utopian angle which was bound to have flaws, but still wasn't a full-fledged dystopia. It will rustle up some great conversations about what the "perfect society" really is. While Morgan wasn't an overtly strong female lead, she also didn't drink the king's Kool-Aid, so to speak. She was happy with her betrothal, but she saw the flaws in the system first hand. In our society, we have a knee-jerk, gut reaction against imposed life-altering decisions, like arranged marriage, so it was an interesting twist to see happy betrothals (Morgan and Basil) and marriages (Lex and Alice) come out of those arrangements. It was an interesting twist on something you won't expect to approve of. The beauty of this story for students is that it is a relatively clean story that can be read in book groups, individually, in class, etc. The story can be complex at times, so it is probably best for a student who can unravel the multiple layers of the society DeStefano created. And I desperately hope that amazing, passionate momentum from the end of the story continues into the sequel!
When a devastating consequence of trying to cure diseases leaves all new generations with an early expiration date (20 yrs for women and 25 for men), the generations left will try anything to find a cure. There are no boundaries to how far they will go, including unthinkable experiments. In the conclusion to Lauren DeStefano's Sever, we see the true devastation of the virus and the unflappable hope of a few that might just turn the tide against complete destruction.
Rhine has survived her murderous father-in-law before, but she never thought she would find herself back in his grasp so soon. Vaughn will go to great lengths to conduct his experiments, but his daughter-in-law's unusual eyes are the source of his intrigue. This time, however, Rhine's husband Linden is actually listening to Rhine's concerns. He agrees to take Rhine and his son and other wife, Cecily, to his reclusive uncle's house instead of keeping them under Vaughn's watchful eye. But Vaughn isn't so easily deterred.
He quickly finds them and through blackmail and threats, he convinces Linden and Cecily to return home. Meanwhile, Rhine's only concern is finding her brother. Rowan has become the leader of the resistance, blown up laboratories trying to develop a cure, and is the source of a great deal of terror in the world, all because he believes the hunt for the cure is what killed his sister. After Cecily loses her baby and realizes Vaughn's connection to her pregnancy so soon after the difficult birth of her first son, she convinces Linden to go with Rhine in her search. They may soon find Rowan, but the answers they find along the way in their search may not be the answers they were expecting to find.
Hmmmm. Well, I am not sure where to begin with this book, this series. I loved Wither, but Sever not only suffered from the sophomore slump, it made me wonder if it was even written by the same woman. Where was the magic? Where was the beautiful, haunting intrigue the first book was so full of? SO I really wanted this final book to pick up that beauty and recover from the confusion of the second book. Sadly, it failed on that front for me. There wasn't anything of importance for the vast majority of the book, and then the bitter end was solid, albeit rushed.
*Spoiler Alert* The entire plot of the story consisted of run away from Vaughn, Vaughn finds them. Run away again, Vaughn finds them again. Run away again, agree to return with Vaughn. Find out Vaughn is hiding and experimenting on your one true love, leave him there while you dither and fritter your time away so sad that he is in the basement in an induced coma. bad vaughn. We hate Vaughn. Grrrr. And that was about it. I did indeed like the way the story ended, but our journey to get to those last 20 pages was a bit ridiculous. No, actually, it was more than that. It was really ridiculous. If an evil, mad scientist had your love in the basement withering away and doped up, wouldn't you find a way to break him free and escape? Yeah, me too. Not Rhine! She goes to tea. And argues with Vaughn. And does as she is told. Ugh. As if our young adults need anything more to pull them into the dark side of passivity. *End Spoiler*
So I have to say this series started out fabulously and ended with my complete confusion for the way the author took the story. it felt as though she had a good book idea that a publisher convinced her to make into a trilogy, because that is what sells these days, and so she stretched everything and added some whining and pining, and POOF you have yourself a trilogy. And thanks to Wither, we know DeStefano can WRITE! So what happened here? I am not sure, but it makes me sad to think this happened to a really promising author who had a lot to offer. I am not sure I would recommend this series to someone, because it just did not do anything for me by the end. The conclusion is good, but that doesn't make up for the crap that came before it. I hope DeStefano manages to come back from this series and get back to the beautiful, haunting writing she showed us in Wither. Those are books I would definitely buy.
Ah, the sad middle book. Just like the middle child, it suffers from identity crisis. Neither the attention grabbing first book or the long-awaited, cathartic conclusion, the middle book is bound by the desperation to live up to the first book without all the excitement of the final book. So, it makes sense that Lauren DeStefano's Fever would have a lot of work to do to make Wither fans happy. But could it pull itself out of the middle child lot in life?
Rhine and Gabriel ran for their lives, but the life they find outside the estate's walls where Rhine's husband, sister wife, and evil father-in-law live is not the freedom they imagined it would be. Almost immediately after escaping, they find themselves held captive again. This time, the captor might not be performing horrific experiments, but she isn't exactly warm and cuddly either.
Sucked into a brothel where the girls are ranked according to color by their level of worth, Rhine finds herself trapped and Gabriel is being kept drugged so he can't help her. Lilac, another trapped girl, helps Rhine through this terrifying experience, and finds a way to get Rhine and Gabriel to safety outside the brothel's electrified walls, but she wants to come with them and she doesn't plan on leaving her blind, malformed daughter behind. Their escape brings them closer to finding Rhine's brother, but in a world where mother's don't grow old enough to see their children become adults, another mother is separated from her daughter. Is finding Rhine's brother Rowan worth everything she and Gabriel have suffered through.
Sadly, this book did not live up to Wither for me. I thought it was kind of forced with no real purpose and while the outcome was incredibly interesting, the almost 300 pages that came before it were bland and lost. The exploits of Rhine and Gabriel could have been exciting, but instead they rambled around in a drug and illness induced haze that just seemed unnecessary. I found myself hoping the book would end quickly so I could move on to something more interesting, but feeling obligated to stick with it out of love for the first book.
When all was said and done, I am glad I slogged through this book because the final 40 pages or so were reminiscent of the Wither I love. It was creepy and exciting and terrifying all at once, and I couldn't stop reading once I hit that point. Unfortunately, a struggling reader might never make it to that point. I am sad to see this series stray in the middle, but I am hopeful it will triumph in the end. So fingers crossed that the final book will live up to the first book and not be stained with the memory of the sad middle child!
The new thing these days with these young adult trilogies is to release small stories in between novels as "teaser" for the newest book in the series. OK, I am fine with that, but the short story has to do something for me. I buy them because I love the trilogy, but when I get to the story and find out it is actually 86% (according to my Kindle) filled with chapters from the first book (and you wouldn't be reading this short story had you NOT already read the first book), and another ~10% previews for the next book, you find yourself wondering, "Why did I buy this 7 paged snippet?"
Once you wade through the chapters from Lauren DeStefano's Wither (which you undoubtedly already read), you get to the short story First Bride, which is the reason you purchased this eBook in the first place. The story is from Rose's point of view, the first wife who was dying and Rhine and the others were a replacement for. The chapter, because for me 7 Kindle pages does not constitute any kind of short story to speak of, was certainly interesting, but it should have been incorporated as a brief introductory chapter to Wither. Its only saving grace was getting to view Linden in this light, who was always a character you struggled to like or dislike. Seeing him with Rose, the girl he truly loved, you get to see the magnitude of his grief and the devastation this virus has caused.
But still, I just can't justify this being sold separately from the original novel Wither and the new novel, Fever. I suppose if you are a Wither fan like myself, you will still buy it since you want to know everything you can about Wither. Of course, you will most likely be a little disappointed like I was. The story was interesting, but not worth the money or the effort of slogging through 50 pages of the first book... But I imagine, if you are anything like me, you are still dying to read Fever regardless of the disappointment of Seeds of Wither.
The cover and design of this book is so unique and so striking you simply can't ignore it. I was so enamored with the design on the cover pages and throughout the book I just thumbed through it for a while before reading it! When I finally did start reading, I realized it was actually as good of a book as it looked. Lauren DeStefano's breakout dystopia Wither is the start of the Chemical Garden Trilogy, and you won't want to stop reading once you hit that last page!
Modern science has cured all those horrible illnesses and defects that affect children. Unfortunately, it only worked for one generation. The generations that follow find themselves with a severely shortened life span before dying an agonizing death. Women live to be 20 and men to 25, and so far there has been no progress in reversing the process. This has caused many first generation people to accept babies as donations for medical experiments to find a cure. More wealthy people have started collecting wives (and usually kidnapping and buying them) in order to have as many babies as possible. This situation has created a world of orphans where young girls are kidnapped and forced to bear children they will never get to raise.
Rhine Ellery and her brother are barely scraping by, but they still do better than most kids their age. They have some food and are able to work enough to stay safe- until Rhine answers an add for work and finds herself in the back of a van with a large group of girls. She has seen other girls in her neighborhood disappear into the hands of the Gatherers, but she never thought it could happen to her. She is tossed from the van where a man makes his decision to keep three of the girls, including Rhine. Once the man leaves, the other girls are put back in the van and disposed of. The three who were chosen and spared are taken to a magnificent estate, but they have no idea where they are. They are brought to a secure wing where they have bedrooms, a sitting room, and a library. This is where Rhine and her sister wives, Jenna and Cecily, are expected to spend the rest of their days, pregnant with Master Linden's babies.
Rhine is 16, Jenna is 18, and Cecily is only 14. Cecily is the only one who is interested in being Linden's wife, as the life in the estate is better than what she experienced in the orphanage. Young and enthusiastic, she vies for Linden's attention. Jenna is the oldest, and while she despises Linden and everything he stands for (he sister was in the van of girls not chosen), she chooses to accept her fate with unwilling concession. Rhine is the only sister wife who wants to escape. She worries about her brother desperately and beings to grow attached to the young man, Gabriel, who delivers food and answers to the wives on the floor. Her feelings for Gabriel are forbidden, but she can't help but care about him.
Her biggest struggle is that she doesn't actually hate Linden. He turns out to just be a clueless, heartbroken boy, much like his new wives. Just after the wives arrive, Linden's previous wife and only true love, Rose, died in the wives wing. He has never really recovered, and only took the new wives at the urging of his father, the evil Vaughn. Vaughn has given his life over to finding the cure that will save his son, but his methods are far less than ethical. He is a horrible, vile man who is afraid to stop at nothing to help his son and find a cure, even if that means sacrificing the lives of the wives. When Vaughn finds out about Rhine's attachment to Gabriel, he takes Gabriel away. Now Rhine must find the boy she truly cares about and find a way out of the estate. But how can she do that when the estate seems like a fortress with no entrance or exit?
I loved so much about this book, it is hard to pick anything specific. The characters were dynamic and had to be peeled away layer by layer like an onion. The characters you thought you would hate turned out to be sad and broken. The ones you thought you would like were flawed. The story takes turns that you would never expect, and the mast villain, Vaughn, is so beyond evil they would have to make a new classification for him right next to Josef Mengele and President Snow of Panem from The Hunger Games. He gives me the creeps just thinking about him. The beauty of this book lies in the fantastic story telling and the haunting but beautifully written prose. This was a difficult topic to broach- forced marriages and kidnapping- but DeStefano accomplished her goal with ease.
The language is moderate, but this might be a book left for mature 9-12 grades. It has tons of discussion opportunities and can make for a great book to read with your child or student. I am thrilled by DeStefano's breakout novel and can't wait for the next book in the trilogy. We are in a stage of the YA world where young people are contributing as much as seasoned authors, and so far, the experience has been amazing! I can't wait to see what they throw out next!
