Wither

Wither
Lauren DeStefano
358 pages
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Source: library
★★★★★

You can read the Goodreads summary here.

I loved this book!  In a world where females die by twenty and males die by twenty-five, teenage girls are captured and sold to wealthy young men to breed.  Rhine has been captured and married unwillingly to the unaware Linden Ashby, a young (obviously), wealthy architect along with two new "sister wives" Cecily and Jenna.  The book follows Rhine's attempt to fool Linden into thinking she loves him while she figures out a way to escape.

While it makes no sense that a virus would kill people off at exactly twenty or twenty-five years of age, I still was drawn in immediately by the plot.  DeStefano has a way of starting a book that draws you in right away without a chapter of back story to drag you down.  The characters were great, I loved the individual personalities of the "sister wives."  Obviously I was drawn to the character of Rhine (beautiful name, by the way) and the way she was able to innocently manipulate those around her to get what she wanted.  That might sound evil, but Rhine is one of the least evil characters I've read.

The only thing I didn't like was having to read the phrase "sister wives."  Yes, that's what they were, but it kept reminding me of that awful TLC reality show.

Anyway, I can't wait to read the rest of this trilogy!  Seriously, you need to read this book!