Quick Review: Wither by Lauren DeStefano

Wither is the first book in the Chemical Garden Trilogy.  Here is the synopsis from the author's site:

Thanks to modern science, every human being has become a ticking genetic time bomb—males only live to age twenty-five, and females only live to age twenty. In this bleak landscape, young girls are kidnapped and forced into polygamous marriages to keep the population from dying out.

When sixteen-year-old Rhine Ellery is taken by the Gatherers to become a bride, she enters a world of wealth and privilege. Despite her husband Linden's genuine love for her, and a tenuous trust among her sister wives, Rhine has one purpose: to escape—to find her twin brother and go home.

But Rhine has more to contend with than losing her freedom. Linden's eccentric father is bent on finding an antidote to the genetic virus that is getting closer to taking his son, even if it means collecting corpses in order to test his experiments. With the help of Gabriel, a servant Rhine is growing dangerously attracted to, Rhine attempts to break free, in the limted time she has left.

I enjoyed this book, but I thought it was missing something in the plot.  I'm hoping that "missing" feeling come from the fact that this book is setting up the story for the rest of the series since it's a trilogy.  I do think each book in a series should have it's own story in addition to the bigger series story, but that wasn't completely the case for this book.  Overall, I was really intrigued with the world that this story takes place in.

I like the main character, Rhine.  For the most part, she is a sensible 16 year old who is dealing with the crazy, dystopian world that she lives in to the best of her ablility.  I thought it was odd that she didn't question the disease more.  She didn't ever wonder why the men live longer.  I also liked her relationships with her sister wives.  They were interesting and dynamic.

I found it odd that because of the disease polygamy was found to be acceptable.  I understand they didn't want the human race to die off, but I didn't get the correlation between that and polygamy.  Was it a practice that was more accepted in the days of Rhine's parents?  I don't think so.

I'm curious to see where they story goes... so I'll be reading the second book when it comes out.

*I received this book as an advanced review copy from the publisher*