Review: Wither by Lauren DeStefano

So many people seem to be looking forward to this one that I almost feel guilty posting that I didn't love it. Nevertheless, it's the truth. I actually read this one before I had the blog so I'm reposting my review from Goodreads.

What if you knew exactly when you would die? 

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.


-Goodreads.com 


I liked the concept here even if it requires a major suspension of disbelief - that in the future boys only live to 25 and females only live to 20- but it wasn't really fleshed out all that much. To be fair, given the POV - a sixteen year old girl - maybe she really doesn't know all that much. Or maybe the author's saving that for future books. The whole premise just felt a bit handwavey, especially when you consider that people go through puberty/menopause, etc. at different times.

The characters themselves were a bit two-dimensional. The 'bad' guy seemed really really awful and the 'good' guy was really naive and sweet. The world just seemed like it could be really complex and in comparison, the characters seemed simple.

The book itself is really readable though; I ended up reading it in one sitting despite the flaws. It's really hard to pinpoint why I didn't love it.I suppose I just wanted it to be a bit more sophisticated.  The genetic aspect of it really intrigued me and we really didn't get that many details on that aspect of things.

I've read other good reviews of this one (and other reviews more in line with what I found), so if you're into the dystopian fiction thing, I'd still recommend picking it up and seeing for yourself. (Though if you're looking for dystopian fiction, I'd recommend Delirium by Lauren Oliver over this one).

(reviewed from an e-galley)

Review: Delirium by Lauren Oliver

(previously posted at my library's teen blog but I really liked the book so thought I would cross-post)

So let's talk about Delirium by Lauren Oliver. From the first time I heard the premise - in the future there's a cure for love - I was intrigued. Here's the deal: In the future love is the enemy. It's a disease, something to be feared. When you reach 18 you get the cure. Lena can't wait. Her mom was so lovesick that she killed herself and Lena is afraid of going down the same path. Lena has always been the good girl, following the rules and not asking too many questions, but when she meets a mysterious outsider everything she knows is turned on its head. What happens when Lena suddenly finds herself questioning things?

What happens when 95 days before the procedure Lena falls in love?

Some reviewers (looking at you, Publisher's Weekly) have found Oliver's world building lacking. That wasn't the case for me. I thought she did a good job of weaving in nursery rhymes and rules and things that made me feel like this world could and did exist. I found the characters to be believable and Lena's actual character change from good girl to rebel was really well done. The actual romance, since this is a story about love, was really intense and well done too. My only nitpick is that the ending felt too abrupt. Without spoiling you, it ended with a bang and then there wasn't a whole lot of resolution so I wish that had been done a bit better (but you do end up feeling as shocked as the characters).

On the whole, I really liked it and I'm recommending it to you, especially if you like dystopian worlds and especially if you like your love stories intense and slightly out of control.

(reviewed from a review copy from HarperTeen - thank you!)

Review: Matched by Ally Condie

(so much for posting Tues & Thurs! Oh well. Figuring things out as I go!)

I've been looking forward to this book for a long while. The premise is fantastic:

Cassia has always trusted the Society to make the right choices for her: what to read, what to watch, what to believe. So when Xander's face appears on-screen at her Matching ceremony, Cassia knows with complete certainty that he is her ideal mate . . . until she sees Ky Markham's face flash for an instant before the screen fades to black.

The Society tells her it's a glitch, a rare malfunction, and that she should focus on the happy life she's destined to lead with Xander. But Cassia can't stop thinking about Ky, and as they slowly fall in love, Cassia begins to doubt the Society's infallibility and is faced with an impossible choice: between Xander and Ky, between the only life she's known and a path that no one else has dared to follow.

- Goodreads.com

I just wish it had been executed better. The thing about writing things in another universe or in the future, or the past, is that we, as the reader in the here and now, get to play anthropologist. If it's written well, we have to sort of muddle around and figure things out. It's part of the fun. Think of A Clockwork Orange. There's lots of strange and new vocabulary but through Burgess' clever use of words, we're able to figure it out.

With Matched, I felt like we were constantly being told, 'this is different than what you know' by the characters who shouldn't know that it's different. It should be normal to them.

For instance, one character says to another something like, 'I hope the train is on time!' and the other character laughs because the train is always on time. Then why even mention it? If it's totally normal, why bring it up? It would be like me going into a movie theatre and saying the same thing even though movies are programmed to start on time. It would be odd. There were other little things too that pulled me out of the story - the characters complain about not having much to do in their leisure time but they've never known anything more. I wouldn't complain about only having 5 movie theatres in my town - unless I used to have ten.

I also find it hard to believe that everyone in this world goes along with the weird restrictions. In Across the Universe by Beth Revis, the people have a good reason for going along with it (which I won't tell you about - read the book) and in Delirium by Lauren Oliver, there IS rebellion but society is trying to cover it up. Maybe there is rebellion that we're not seeing? I don't really buy the whole complacency of the people.

If you can get past the odd world building (another thing - they still use paper for some things even though it's all super futuristic), you might enjoy this book. I genuinely did enjoy the characters and Cassia and Ky's growing friendship, and then romance. I wish Xander had had more screen time. His character fell a bit flat for me. We're constantly being told that all the girls want him but I had a hard time seeing why. I felt that if I had more dialog with him, I might have been Team Xander. As it is, I'm definitely Team Ky.

I don't know if I'll read the next one in this series or not. I like the premise - of being matched with someone but falling for someone else but I feel that this could have easily been written as an arranged marriage novel and skipped on the futuristic premise altogether. I think the strength of the book is in the relationships between the characters.

So in conclusion: Sort of recommended. I imagine that if you're into the dystopian genre, you're going to pick this one up. If you only want to read one dystopian book this year, however, make it Delirium by Lauren Oliver.

(but seriously, how pretty is that cover? Cover love!)

reviewed from library copy

Review: Across the Universe by Beth Revis

Seventeen-year-old Amy joins her parents as frozen cargo aboard the vast spaceship Godspeed and expects to awaken on a new planet, three hundred years in the future. Never could she have known that her frozen slumber would come to an end fifty years too soon and that she would be thrust into the brave new world of a spaceship that lives by its own rules.

Amy quickly realizes that her awakening was no mere computer malfunction. Someone-one of the few thousand inhabitants of the spaceship-tried to kill her. And if Amy doesn't do something soon, her parents will be next.

Now Amy must race to unlock Godspeed's hidden secrets. But out of her list of murder suspects, there's only one who matters: Elder, the future leader of the ship and the love she could never have seen coming.

- from Goodreads.com

So, time to write an actual review of this instead of mindlessly saying how much I like it (and I have said I liked it to lots of people).

I feel like the main complaint people are going to have with this book is that it's been done. The whole cryogenically frozen space ship where things go wrong thing does seem like a common sci-fi trope. Thankfully I don't read tons of sci-fi so Across the Universe felt really new to me. I was intrigued by chapter one which I read a little while ago. By the time I finished page 111 (which Beth Revis released on the release day), I was on the phone to my local bookstore to have them set aside a copy for me. I picked it up on the way home, devoured it all night and neglected all laundry, groceries, etc.

I liked this book. I really liked this book.

It's one part science fiction, one part mystery and one part coming-of-age. While I guessed correctly who was behind the murders almost immediately, that didn't stop me from enjoying the story. There were lots of plot twists and lots of dark secrets to uncover and I really enjoyed learning that what I had suspected was actually the awful truth - and discovering new awful truths. It reminded me of reading mysteries when I was younger - you had all the clues to figure out what was going on and if you did figure out before the 'sleuth', you could sit back and enjoy watching them figure it out. Never did it feel like either of the protagonists was slow, however. I felt that both characters were fairly well developed and their uncovering of the mystery followed a natural progression that kept the suspense high.

I have to say that I did really like these characters even when they were doing unlikeable things. I think the switching points of view worked really well, especially at moments of high-tension. Poor Amy's parents aren't unfrozen when she is and so she misses them terribly and feels really alone. I felt that came clear really well. Elder's (for some reason almost typed Ender - must have another science fiction boy on my mind!) frustration and fear at being expected to govern a ship were all very real and understandable.

I would recommend this one to both guys and girls. There's a lot of suspense and science fiction-y goodness that I think will appeal to lots of teens. I think this is going to be (or maybe HOPE it is going to be) super popular. Can't wait to read more from Beth Revis.

reviewed from purchased copy