Wither by Lauren DeStefano

“As I gradually restore Words Like Silver to its archive of previous reviews written between 2011 and 2024, I'll aim to first and foremost make my reading history explorable by publishing the blurbs and short reflections as books cross my mind, with the goal of eventually transferring and fleshing out the original WLS content. For now, please enjoy a brief look at a book I love.”

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?

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While the plot of Wither is undoubtedly engrossing, the prose is what motivates me to read. It is gorgeous. The sensory detail is dizzying, in an aesthetic I like to call “rotted glamour": lush silks and glitter, but with an undercurrent of something deeper and darker. I first read the book when it came out during the dystopian boom. I generally don’t love dystopians because I don’t love bleak and hopeless tones, but the considerations (and the language!) are complex.

Wither was just as vivid, compelling, and bittersweet as I remember, and was such an excellent start to my reading year. As a note, I first read the book series without knowing that The Handmaid’s Tale existed as a classic, so those who have read the latter may recognize a lot!

Fever, the sequel, has the same intoxicating quality as the first book—dialed up in a colorful, sinister circus setting. Sever, the third book, is where the characters’ dynamics take center stage. No matter what happens in the politics or the worldbuilding with the virus, the unbalanced relationships show how much each of them have changed and developed through the series—a strength.

Admittedly, no dystopian book can have a properly satisfying ending. This one was striking, but I’m still disappointed (no spoilers) in how easily Rhine forgives some of the antagonistic forces of the series. The emotional aspect of that arc felt a bit stunted. Still, the series overall is stunning and deserves more attention.

For fans of:

The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood; The Scorpio Races by Maggie Stiefvater; House of Hollow by Krystal Sutherland; Midnight at the Electric by Jodi Lynn Anderson; The Road by Cormac McCarthy; Delirium by Lauren Oliver.