Young Adult | Book Chatter

Wither
Book #1 of The Chemical Garden Trilogy
By Lauren DeStefano
(Simon & Schuster Children’s Publishing, Hardcover, 9781442409057, March 2011, 368pp.)

The Short of It:

As fun as a book about death and dying can be!

The Rest Of It:

In the not too distant future, women are dying at the age of 20 and males by the age of 25. Only the First Generation can outlive them, and although many have tried to come up with an antidote for the virus that takes their young, so far…no one has been successful. In an effort to save the human race, young girls are abducted and forced to be sister wives who share one husband. Their goal? To produce as many children as possible before dying.

After her parents are killed in a lab explosion, sixteen-year-old Rhine is abducted and forced to marry Governor Linden, who is twenty-years-old and approaching his twilight years. Rhine is a beauty with very unusual eyes. It’s because of her eyes, and her likeness to another girl named Rose, that she is chosen as a bride. However, when she arrives at the house she realizes that she is only one of three new wives and that a fourth is on her deathbed.

Although Governor Linden is actually quite likable, his father, Housemaster Vaughn is anything but! His presence in the house makes Rhine very uncomfortable and when one of her sister wives has a baby, Rhine becomes concerned over what is being done to the baby. Add to that her attraction to a handsome attendant by the name of Gabriel and Rhine finds herself conflicted over what she needs to do.

Polygamy is a loaded topic and DeStefano tackles it successfully. At times, the idea of young, pregnant brides is disturbing, but with the human race dying out as it is, somehow the idea isn’t so bad. The topic is handled delicately and there is nothing overly graphic or violent contained within these pages. I’d say that the target age range of 14+ is accurate.

From an adult perspective, I found the book utterly readable and fun. There’s the whole class struggle thing going on, as well as the conflict that being a sister-wife creates. It was a quick read, and the pages flew by and at the end I found myself looking forward to book #2. If you like to delve into YA now and then and like dystopian fiction but not necessarily the violence, then this might be a good book for you.

Source: Sent to me by the publisher.

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The Water Wars
By Cameron Stracher
Sourcebooks
January 2011
256pp

The Short of It:

The Water Wars is a fast-paced novel geared towards young adults. Its premise is promising… the nation is experiencing a water shortage and it’s left the landscape bone dry. However, as interesting as the story is, the characters take a backseat to the action.

The Rest of It:

Vera and her family struggle to survive on water rations that are modified by desalinization. The removal of salt and minerals is the only way to make salt water palatable and it’s left them weak, and in the case of Vera’s mother, ill. One day, Vera meets a boy by the name of Kai. Kai is special in that he lives with the privileged and seems to have access to an unlimited supply of fresh drinking water. His ability to locate fresh water is soon found out and he is kidnapped. Vera and her brother Will trek across the barren landscape in search of Kai and encounter obstacles such as water pirates, government intervention and flash floods from compromised dams.

The premise behind the book is quite frightening to consider. Stracher does an excellent job setting up the landscape. I could easily visualize the overall dustiness of a land without water. However, the characters, with the exception of Vera, seemed a little flat to me. Vera reminded me a lot of Katniss from The Hunger Games. She is determined and plucky and believable. However, Kai…who is such an important piece of the puzzle seems vacant in some way. Granted, he’s missing for a good chunk of the novel, but when he’s present, he’s not really PRESENT. His personality doesn’t really come through and this made it hard for me to buy the little romance between the two.

As far as action, there’s plenty of it but it didn’t allow a reader to linger with these characters for too long. They were off and running throughout the entire novel. From a tween’s perspective though, I imagine this would be right up their alley. Tweens don’t want to spend ages getting to the main story. They want you to get to the point quickly, and I do feel that Stracher succeeded in doing that. Also, the narrative structure played out like a movie which I think younger readers tend to like when reading a book.

In summary, younger readers (tweens and teens) will enjoy it whereas older readers might find it lacking.

Source: Sent to me by the publisher.

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