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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!
