Book Review: Fever by Lauren DeStefano

Fever by Lauren DeStefano
Publisher: Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers
Publication date: February 2012
Pages: 352
Source: Library
For: Fun
Series: Chemical Garden, Book 2

*Spoilers for book 1, Wither, are inevitable*
Rhine and Gabriel may have escaped from the mansion where Rhine's husband and father-in-law ruled their lives, but they are far from free. Stumbling onto a strange circus world where nothing is as it seems, the two find themselves just as confined as before. Can they survive in this new world?

Things I Liked:
I love how the story is so strangely atmospheric.  Gabriel and Rhine see some very weird and totally destroyed places in the real world and DeStefano has painted them very well for us, especially with the vivid use of color and scent.  I was quite surprised by some of the twists at the end - not all of them, but some.  I really like how Gabriel and Rhine's relationship is not set in stone, they are not in insta-love or even necessarily in love, but trying to figure it out.  It feels more realistic than some of the true love YA books out there, which was refreshing.  The ending definitely left me eager to figure everything out and see what happens next.

Things I Didn't Like:
Honestly, the first two thirds of the book were so trippy and insane that I had a really hard time enjoying it.  Rhine has the craziest dreams/hallucinations/nightmares so often that I got tired of reading about the things she saw.  It seems to be (in my very uninformed opinion) an accurate portrayal of a person in her situation, but it was also really annoying.  The ending picked up when things began to fall into place, but it almost seemed like the first part of the book at the circus was a random side trip with no significant place in the story.  I still plan to read the next book, but I'm not raving about this second in the series.

Read-alikes:
Honestly, not sure it's like anything I've read - maybe a bit like Delirium by Lauren Oliver
Start with the first book, Wither by Lauren DeStefano

BOOK CONTENT RATINGS:
s-factor: ! 
some, not a lot

mrg-factor: X 
some steamy stuff, but not beyond

v-factor: ->
a little bit of action and some scary images

Overall rating: ***

Who likes trippy books?  And why? :)

If you buy through my Amazon linkage, I will get a very small percentage

Book Review: Wither by Lauren DeStefano

Wither by Lauren DeStefano
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Publication date: March 2011
ISBN: 9781442409057
Source: ARC sent by publisher

When Rhine is kidnapped and forced into a marriage with a man who has three other wives, she little expects to find any pleasure in the rest of her short life.  In her world, women live only until 20, while men live until 25, due to an unknown virus.  She only has four years left, but being trapped and at the mercy of her husband's creepy father is not how she wants to spend that time.  Little by little, Rhine develops relationships with those around her - her sister wives, a serving boy, even her husband.  Will she ever find a way out or will she decide that this life is not so very bad?

Things I Liked:
I thought the portrayal of Rhine's relationships and the changes she experiences throughout the book were really interesting.  DeStefano has taken a potentially horrifying situation and made characters that you should despise into relatable, sympathetic, real people.  I loved how those relationships were built over time and not instantaneously, like many romantic YA books today.  The writing is simply fantastic, each scene and place described in vivid and sometimes horrifying detail.  The future world's technology and situations are (for the most part) quite believable and well-realized.  And that ending really made me want to know what happens next!  An interesting and fairly unique dystopian debut.

Things I Didn't Like:
The one detail I had the hardest time accepting was the virus that kills people at specific ages.  I thought it was a little too much of a convenience for the story.  I just couldn't believe that there would be something so specifically able to target a person who suddenly reaches a certain age.  However, the dressings on the story and the beautiful exploration of relationships easily distracted me from that distraction.

Read-alikes:
Matched by Ally Condie
Bumped by Megan McCafferty
XVI by Julia Karr

BOOK CONTENT RATINGS:
s-factor: !
some, not a lot

mrg-factor: XX
Nothing too descriptive, but because they're married...

v-factor: ->
mostly off-page and creepy, but not outright violent

Overall rating: *****

I've seen lots of reviews for this one, both positive and negative. Where do you fall on the spectrum?

If you buy through my Amazon linkage, I will get a very small percentage