Wither by Lauren DeStefano

By age sixteen, Rhine Ellery has four years left to live. She can thank modern science for this genetic time bomb. A botched effort to create a perfect race has left all males with a lifespan of 25 years, and females with a lifespan of 20 years. Geneticists are seeking a miracle antidote to restore the human race, desperate orphans crowd the population, crime and poverty have skyrocketed, and young girls are being kidnapped and sold as polygamous brides to bear more children.
When Rhine is kidnapped and sold as a bride, she vows to do all she can to escape. Her husband, Linden, is hopelessly in love with her, and Rhine can’t bring herself to hate him as much as she’d like to. He opens her to a magical world of wealth and illusion she never thought existed, and it almost makes it possible to ignore the clock ticking away her short life. But Rhine quickly learns that not everything in her new husband’s strange world is what it seems. Her father-in-law, an eccentric doctor bent on finding the antidote, is hoarding corpses in the basement. Her fellow sister wives are to be trusted one day and feared the next, and Rhine is desperate to communicate to her twin brother that she is safe and alive. Will Rhine be able to escape--before her time runs out?
Together with one of Linden's servants, Gabriel, Rhine attempts to escape just before her seventeenth birthday. But in a world that continues to spiral into anarchy, is there any hope for freedom?
 
Wither has been an interesting read for me; there is no doubt that I loved it, but it's just a strange plot line to keep up with. The only thing that I can come up with to describe this book is "It's complicated" which doesn't tell you very much at all. Also this book has the tendency to be a literal broken record. You'll find yourself reading similar scenes throughout the whole book, like the author couldn't come up with new scenes so she just repeats old ones. Overall this book is romantic, but kinda creepy, and fascinating, but kinda awkward. A word of warning: If you end up wanting to read this book, ask your parents first. There is a lot of talk about sex in this book even though there is nothing graphic or detailed (Just something to keep in mind). In the end Wither is unique at it's best use of the word.      Plot:4.25/5 stars  Cover: 4/5 stars  -Katie