Wither

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 limited time she has left.

Wither is such a strange book. I wavered between giving it three or four stars on goodreads and ended up settling for three. It was an interesting concept, but I didn't get into it like I was hoping to. It was creepy dystopian, not compelling dystopian, if that makes any sense. The whole polygamy thing was just not in my comfort zone. Despite having a lot to do with teenagers being married off to make babies at ridiculously young ages, there were at least no horribly gratuitous scenes. The ending left me curious enough that I'll likely check out the sequel (even though I thought the ending was a bit silly for such a serious subject). Anyway, I think I'm getting tired and I hope that I haven't just typed a bunch of stuff that makes no sense... :D