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Review also posted The Wandering Fangirl.
I'm not sure what it is about the YA dystopian trend right now, but I love reading all the novels I can find, no matter the content. Good or bad, I try to get my hands on them. The great ones (such as [b:The Hunger Games|2767052|The Hunger Games (The Hunger Games, #1)|Suzanne Collins|http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1293504845s/2767052.jpg|2792775], which is what everyone is aiming for right) know how to create a terrifying, if believable, future, and how to make us connect to the characters as they navigate their worlds. The bad ones focus on boring romances and love triangles and shoehorn the plot in. Then there are the novels like Wither, which fall somewhere in between.
I will forgive a novel or TV show a lot if the world building is fantastic. There's nothing I love more than a new world to explore. I love reading how things got the way they did, I love experiencing new societies. I love maps. Holy crap, do I love maps. But I digress. I'll also forgive a novel a lot if the characterization is great, or I'm drawn into a world despite it all.
Wither's world building falls apart if you think about it too hard. This great review highlights everything I found wrong with it -- from the gene therapy to the class discrepancies, the details don't make sense when you add them up, and if it weren't for the writing and character work, I would have abandoned this after a hundred pages in.
Thankfully, Lauren DeStefano's writing cloaks you in our heroine Rhine's world the way the rest of the world is cloaked from those living in the house of her new polyamorous husband. Seeing everything through her captive eyes and her heart makes the book bearable, even makes it good, because DeStefano has a beautiful way with words. Rhine is fully believable, from her unwillingness to fall for her new life to the occasional bouts of sympathy she may have for Linden, her husband. Her longing for the twin brother she misses and her new attachments to her sister-wives -- the quiet, older Jenna and the eager Cecily -- are written well. And, for once, I didn't mind the inevitable love triangle. It's treated as more like a building friendship, which makes me roll about in glee. So many dystopian romances are built on the boy simply being wrong for the girl, and while Gabriel, one of the house servants, is taboo for Rhine, he's a friend first.
Wither is a breath of fresh air in a crowded genre, and I'm looking forward to the second book.
I'm not sure what it is about the YA dystopian trend right now, but I love reading all the novels I can find, no matter the content. Good or bad, I try to get my hands on them. The great ones (such as [b:The Hunger Games|2767052|The Hunger Games (The Hunger Games, #1)|Suzanne Collins|http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1293504845s/2767052.jpg|2792775], which is what everyone is aiming for right) know how to create a terrifying, if believable, future, and how to make us connect to the characters as they navigate their worlds. The bad ones focus on boring romances and love triangles and shoehorn the plot in. Then there are the novels like Wither, which fall somewhere in between.
I will forgive a novel or TV show a lot if the world building is fantastic. There's nothing I love more than a new world to explore. I love reading how things got the way they did, I love experiencing new societies. I love maps. Holy crap, do I love maps. But I digress. I'll also forgive a novel a lot if the characterization is great, or I'm drawn into a world despite it all.
Wither's world building falls apart if you think about it too hard. This great review highlights everything I found wrong with it -- from the gene therapy to the class discrepancies, the details don't make sense when you add them up, and if it weren't for the writing and character work, I would have abandoned this after a hundred pages in.
Thankfully, Lauren DeStefano's writing cloaks you in our heroine Rhine's world the way the rest of the world is cloaked from those living in the house of her new polyamorous husband. Seeing everything through her captive eyes and her heart makes the book bearable, even makes it good, because DeStefano has a beautiful way with words. Rhine is fully believable, from her unwillingness to fall for her new life to the occasional bouts of sympathy she may have for Linden, her husband. Her longing for the twin brother she misses and her new attachments to her sister-wives -- the quiet, older Jenna and the eager Cecily -- are written well. And, for once, I didn't mind the inevitable love triangle. It's treated as more like a building friendship, which makes me roll about in glee. So many dystopian romances are built on the boy simply being wrong for the girl, and while Gabriel, one of the house servants, is taboo for Rhine, he's a friend first.
Wither is a breath of fresh air in a crowded genre, and I'm looking forward to the second book.