Wither by Lauren DeStefano

It's an odd thing. Sometimes I read a book and I don't end up with much to say. Even if I like the book too. I suspect it's a sign for me to take a small break in reading. No matter how much I love books, I can get saturated.

Wither is a good book. It is another dystopian set up. In this near future version of the world mankind has conquered most disease and genetic engineering. In fact, so successful that about 70 years before the beginning of the book, there was a whole generation of babies that were artificially conceived. That whole generation - the first generation - was completely healthy. However, 50 years after, or so, it turns out that the children of the first generation are all susceptible to a mysterious virus that kills all the men at age 25 and all the women at 20. There are no survivors and the virus works like clockwork.

This of course all has a rather immediate effect on society. There are large numbers of orphans floating around. Women are stolen from their families to become part of polygamous marriages for the wealthy with the hope of producing more offspring. Rhine is one such young woman. She might be stolen and married off, but she has no intention of idly accepting her fate and immediately starts to plot an escape.

There is a large cast of characters including Rhine's two sister-wives, her husband and her husband's father, and all the servants and attendants. The interesting thing is that the vast majority of the characters are likable and that includes the husband, Linden. As much as this is sci fi, it's the psychological aspects of the narrative are the most interesting. One gets the sense that it's really the world that is pushing events more that it is evil acts. Mind you, the bad guy is super creepy.

I'm looking forward to seeing how the narrative develops in the second book.