Rhine and Gabriel have escaped the mansion, but danger is never far behind.
Running away brings Rhine and Gabriel right into a trap, in the form of a twisted carnival whose ringmistress keeps watch over a menagerie of girls. Just as Rhine uncovers what plans await her, her fortune turns again. With Gabriel at her side, Rhine travels through an environment as grim as the one she left a year ago - surroundings that mirror her own feelings of fear and hopelessness.
The two are determined to get to Manhattan, to relative safety with Rhine’s twin brother, Rowan. But the road there is long and perilous - and in a world where young women only live to age twenty and young men die at twenty-five, time is precious. Worse still, they can’t seem to elude Rhine’s father-in-law, Vaughn, who is determined to bring Rhine back to the mansion...by any means necessary.
In the sequel to Lauren DeStefano’s harrowing Wither, Rhine must decide if freedom is worth the price - now that she has more to lose than ever.
I am going to warn my readers now, this review might be a bit spoiler-riffic, and full of rants. So, only read this review if you don't care about having the plot somewhat revealed for you. I was mildly excited to read this book, as I felt Wither was somewhat unsatisfying and my questions would be answered in the second book. Whoops - should have read something else. I suppose I could say that my questions were answered, but only in the most predictable and stagnant way possible.
Okay, so here we are in 2012, an era when YA dystopian fiction with strong heroines is popular - rock on Katniss! And then there's Rhine; in my head, I re-named the girl "Whine" instead of "Rhine," because other than puke, that's pretty much all she does. At least I can credit DeStefano for breaking the mold? Throughout this novel, we are supposed to believe in Rhine's "inner strength," as she thinks about it all the time. But, I just didn't see her actions in this novel line up with any sort of inner strength. She ends up (plot details given away):
1. In a prostitution circus, drugged out and forced to "perform" with Gabriel as customers watch
2. Traveling around the country, "mysteriously" ill (at least here she somewhat took control)
3. Vomiting all over herself numerous times, but hiding it from everyone (just stupid, not strong)
4. Shot up with various drugs
5. An unwilling victim of medical experiments (but don't worry, she just sits there drugged out and does nothing)
Ok, so it's not a pretty world she lives in, and there are apparently all sorts of people conspiring behind her back, but really. Rather than seeing Rhine making a plan and executing it, all I really saw her doing was feeling sick and wishing she could come up with a plan. At about page 200, I was over it. And then, even worse, there's Gabriel. I will be putting his name on the "Characters I Don't Give Two Hoots About" list. For someone who supposedly gave Rhine the inner strength to leave the mansion, and who stays devotedly by her side (out of love?), his character is REMARKABLY flat. I know he has green eyes (which look at Rhine with concern... A LOT), and that he lived in an orphanage before being sold to the mansion. That is all. If she and Gabriel are supposed to love one another, there is zero chemistry to confirm it. Plus, (spoiler here), when she and Gabriel get separated, Rhine doesn't even seem to miss him, and instead is just relieved to see some other lost characters (I won't say more). If they are in love, it seems like a pretty wishy-washy one. I found myself instead cheering for Linden, the wimpy husband she ran away from in the first book. So sad.
The plot in this novel moves a lot more than the first book, but that's really only due to the numerous changes in setting. The reader follows Rhine and Gabriel up the east coast of the United States on their way to reunite with Rhine's twin Rowan in Manhattan. As one can imagine, the two meet various difficulties along the way. While this seems like an alright premise for the book, there were a few snags in the logic and/or writing that dampened my enjoyment. To start, I can't get a sense from either of these books about the state of the country. On one hand, the situation seems so dire all that's left for females to do is hide, go into prostitution, or marry into polygamous relationships designed to breed more children in the hopes a cure will be discovered and save the children before they reach their fatal age. Ok, a little bleak and full of sex (I'll cover that topic later), but fine. However, on the other hand, apparently the infrastructure is still held-together enough that there are television broadcasts, truck deliveries of luxury goods like soda and potato chips, hot water and electricity readily available, and food such as oatmeal and maple syrup accessible to most citizens. Or, medicine is so expensive that Rhine can't get it, but a woman who runs an orphanage can? Keep in mind, these orphanages are so desperate for money in other parts of the series that they sell children with little compunction. So which is it? I felt like there wasn't much attention paid to world-building and keeping it consistent, but instead the future evolves in a way that makes it convenient for moving the series along. While I want to see Rhine happy and reunited with her brother (after all, as a big sister myself I am always going to cheer for family!), there were so many other weird moments in this book to get over and I just couldn't. Even worse, the two supposed "twists" at the end of the novel were something that I just assumed had happened in the first. So, no real excitement until the last line of the book, which does leave off on a cliffhanger.
On the surface, there isn't much content about which a teacher would be concerned. On the surface. All sex happens off-page, and there are zero swear words. But as a female helping other young ladies develop confidence, I have to wonder about the message this series sends overall. Is the future of womenkind so tied to the nation's that if one collapses, so will the other? Meaning, if the world goes awry, all us girls will have left is having sex and hoping for men to save us? Oh, and also, we could become victims of highly unethical medical experiments. Yay progress? I just feel like if someone is a female writer, creating books for impressionable female readers (as most teens are), why not choose the empowerment route? Instead, this whole book is completely bleak, and Rhine doesn't overcome it and rise above (which would make the message more tolerable). And why the preoccupation with sex at all? There are so many other interesting debates the premise of the novel brings up - for example, how to spend our years alive - but the essential enslavement of women overpowered all of those for me.
The cover of the book is pretty, as was the first, but I think it's deceiving. The message of the series is anything but, and the writing is nothing to write home about. I will not be purchasing these books for my classroom anytime soon, and don't plan on passing the series into the hands of readers. And when 2013 rolls around, I doubt I'll bother reading the third book. There are too many other exciting, uplifting, or thought-provoking series out there.
