Wither (Chemical Garden Trilogy, #1)

by Lauren DeStefano

[Michael @ Knowledge Lost]

Wither is an interesting tale of Rhine; a sixteen year old kidnapped and sold to the rich. Rhine a long with two other girls were sold off as wives to Linden, an ignorant and people pleasing boy, living under the shadows of his father, Vaughn; the evil Victor Frankenstein character.

I think the real reason why I enjoyed this book, was the simple fact it almost reads like a homage to [b:Frankenstein|18490|Frankenstein|Mary Shelley|http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1311647465s/18490.jpg|4836639]. The whole ‘Man playing God’ and the ‘dangers of science’ are heavily themed in this book. It also mentioned the masterpiece on a number of occasions which pleased me a great deal.

The book isn’t full of action or anything like this; but it does contain so well written YA characters, who displaying their strengths and weaknesses thought out the book. [a:Lauren DeStefano|4103366|Lauren DeStefano|http://photo.goodreads.com/authors/1305725851p2/4103366.jpg] did a great job in capturing the struggles and the emotions that would be involved rather well. I think the three (very different) wives, helped in covering all the different emotions that a kidnapped victim might go though.

Wither is the first book in an upcoming trilogy and while I’m interested to know what happens next to Rhine, I think the homage to [b:Frankenstein|18490|Frankenstein|Mary Shelley|http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1311647465s/18490.jpg|4836639] has ended, so I won’t rush out to read the next book. Overall it was a decent drama in the YA/Dystopian genre, and if you are interested in reading a YA book, then this one is definitely worth the read.