Sever by Lauren DeStefano (The Chemical Garden #3)

Genres: Young Adult, Sci-fi, Dystopian, Post-Apocalyptic, Romance
Publication Date: February 12th 2013
POV: Female - First-person, Present tense
My Rating: Did Not Finish

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With the clock ticking until the virus takes its toll, Rhine is desperate for answers. After enduring Vaughn’s worst, Rhine finds an unlikely ally in his brother, an eccentric inventor named Reed. She takes refuge in his dilapidated house, though the people she left behind refuse to stay in the past. While Gabriel haunts Rhine’s memories, Cecily is determined to be at Rhine’s side, even if Linden’s feelings are still caught between them.

Meanwhile, Rowan’s growing involvement in an underground resistance compels Rhine to reach him before he does something that cannot be undone. But what she discovers along the way has alarming implications for her future—and about the past her parents never had the chance to explain.

In this breathtaking conclusion to Lauren DeStefano’s Chemical Garden trilogy, everything Rhine knows to be true will be irrevocably shattered.

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I enjoyed Wither enough to keep going with the series. It made me a bit uncomfortable, but I was curious about Rhine and Gabriel's fate. So I read Fever and enjoyed it more. There was little or no Linden, several locales, and much more romance developed between Rhine and Gabriel and it was totally adorable. It had so much more progress in Rhine's life overall, compared to Wither, which was stagnant in comparison. Of course it was all undone with one move by Vaughn in the end. But with only one book left in the series, and with so much left to accomplished, I figured Sever would be full of excitement. But 100 pages in and I still have to suffer through Linden's presence, and there is still no sign of Gabriel, and no sign that Rhine will be going after him or Rowan any time soon. I hate how the book portrays Linden as a sympathetic character. In the first book he was portrayed as kind, although he impregnated a 13 year-old. Its a contradiction but I figured it didn't matter, because I figured he didn't matter. But 2 books later and Rhine's world still seems to revolve around Linden. His role in the series isn't what I thought it would be. He completely disgusts me and I couldn't take it anymore. What finally tipped me over the edge was this line:

"I don't know that I could ever love [Gabriel] the way that Linden and Cecily are in love, or the way Linden and Rose were."

WTF?! You think impregnating a barely pubescent girl twice in quick succession, causing her to nearly die is love? You think his love for two girls within a year could grow stronger than you could love Gabriel in a lifetime? Gabriel who is actually worthy? If Linden had actually loved Rose or Cecily his relationship with his other wives would have seemed wrong to him. He had absolutely no sense of fidelity. If he didn't love them, then I understand it may not have occurred to him that what he was doing was wrong, because that's just how the world is now. But if he loved Cecily, he would not have been making any attempt to reconcile with Rhine. So if Rhine cant love Gabriel as much as Linden can love, than the fault is solely hers. She is defective and doesn't know the meaning of love. So I closed the book. I'm done.

Fever by Lauren DeStefano (The Chemical Garden #2)

Genres: Young Adult, Sci-fi, Dystopian, Post-Apocalyptic, Romance
My Rating: 3 out of 5

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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.

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Although not a lot happened in this book, I enjoyed it more than Wither. After Rhine and Gabriel escape they travel from place to place, looking for Rhine's brother and never staying anywhere long. Nothing of much significance happened until the end. But I enjoyed it more than Wither anyway because I found Wither really disturbing. I hated the idea of the Brides and being forced into that life is as bad as prostitution. I am glad that it wasn't covered much in this book.

I also enjoyed it because there was so much more Gabriel and so much less Linden. Despite the dark subject matter, the romance in this book is really sweet and innocent, like in Matched or Origin. Actually, its more like Origin because they are both very heavy, but still sweet with the romance. They both even discuss scientific experimentation on humans. Rhine and Gabriel spent a lot of time together and went through a lot together, and they are good for each other. But I am really disappointed in how Rhine reacted in the end. She seemed to give up too easily, and is still more worried about her brother than anything (and why did she not throw that ring away at the first opportunity?). But I think that Gabriel knows her, and knows what she will do next and will be able to find her.

Linden is revolting. They tried to make him seem all sympathetic at the end in the hospital. "Poor naive Linden. Mistreated and manipulated by his father." But all I have to do is remember Cecily. He impregnated a 13 year-old! Enough said. He's sick.

I am really hoping for a HEA in Sever. They don't even have to solve all their problems. I just want them to find safety somewhere. Even if Rowan ends up to be crazy. Even if there's no cure and we know Rhine will die in a few years. I just want her to be free until then.

Wither by Lauren DeStefano (The Chemical Garden #1)

Genres: Young Adult, Sci-fi, Dystopian, Post-Apocalyptic, Romance
My Rating: 3 out of 5

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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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There were a lot of little things that brought this down for me, but overall I enjoyed the story and characters. Some of the little things that bothered me were, why kill the girls that weren't chosen? Rhine even says once that Vaughn never wastes anything. If you are so desperate to save the human race, why not leave the girls to reproduce with someone else? And, if you have a whole floor of your house dedicated to your young wives, why oh why would the only servant allowed on that floor be a young man? Asking for trouble. And then, of course, Rhine didn't hate Linden as much as she should have. There were several bad things about his character that we were led to believe but we later find out are not true. I suspected this from the beginning. He seemed far too meek to be responsible for those things. But I would still never ever forget that he impregnated a 13 year old girl. That is unforgivable. I cant believe some people like him more than Gabriel. Linden may be meek and not evil, but he has some serious issues! How could he live like that and think its ok? Having three wives, four in the beginning, sleeping with multiple women yet claiming to love only one. He's twisted in the head.

And the way sex was handle in this book made me extremely uncomfortable. There were no sex scenes in this book, but it was talked about casually, and it was obviously going on all the time. And there is one scene when Rhine walks in on Jenna and Linden and there is a kama sutra on the floor. Awkward! I don't think I would have the instincts to survive in this kind of world. I would be the girl who was crying and banging on the wall and vomiting at the beginning. If I ever made it to the house, which is unlikely, it would have been obvious from the beginning I wasn't there willingly. But how horrifying everything is just makes Rhine all the more impressive for surviving it. But I would not recommend this for younger readers.

I was really impressed with Rhine. Aside from accepting Linden a little too easily, she was very strong and never gave up hope of getting out or finding her brother. She was the strongest of the three wives, the most admirable, and an amazing actress to fool Linden for so long. And I really loved Gabriel. I was disappointed that Linden got so much more focus than Gabriel, but there will be much more Gabriel in the next book which I am looking forward to. The ending was wonderful, and hopeful, and I am very much looking forward to the next book. The Handmaid's Tale comparisons are inevitable. I read The Handmaid's Tale a long time ago in school. They are quite similar and I enjoyed them both.

“You've been captive for so long that you don't even realize you want freedom anymore.”