Spoiler alert (if you haven't read the first two instalments)!
Wither: Rhine Ellery is sixteen years old but only has 4 years left to live thanks to a virus that kills females some time after their twentieth birthday and males around their twenty-fifth. With no cure for the virus, the world has lost hope and has begun to fall apart. Young girls are frequently kidnapped and forced into polygamous marriages to help keep the population alive. Rhine is one of those unfortunate enough to be taken by the Gatherers and sold to a cruel man (Vaughn) to be a wife for his son Linden. Linden already has a wife (Rose) whom he dearly loves but her time is almost up and so his father has bought him the unusual Rhine with heterochromatic eyes, the beautiful Jenna and the very young Cecily, all three of whom have been kidnapped by the Gatherers. Linden is kind to them all and becomes particularly fond of Rhine but she longs for freedom and to reunite with her twin brother, Rowan. With the deaths of Rose and Jenna and the birth of Cecily's son Bowen, Rhine can't help but begin to bond with her new 'family' but she also begins to fall for the servant Gabriel and so desires to help him know freedom too.
Fever: Rhine escapes with Gabriel, and immediately falls into a trap in the form of a twisted carnival where Madame rules. She makes Rhine her star attraction but Rhine is still desperate to make it back to Manhattan and reunite with Rowan. Together, Rhine and Gabriel manage to escape but sorrow awaits Rhine at her former home and then she begins to become increasingly ill even though it is not yet her time to die. Linden's father hunts her down and uses Rhine for his twisted experiments.
Sever (taken from waterstones.com): 'Time is running out for Rhine. With less than three years left until the virus claims her life, Rhine is desperate for answers. Having escaped torment at Vaughn's mansion, she finds respite in the dilapidated home of her husband's uncle, an eccentric inventor who hates Vaughn almost as much as Rhine does. Rhine's determination to be reunited with her twin brother, Rowan, increases as each day brings terrifying revelations to light about his involvement in an underground resistance. She realizes must find him before he destroys the one thing they have left: hope. In this breathtaking conclusion to Lauren DeStefano's The Chemical Garden trilogy, everything Rhine knows to be true will be irrevocably shattered. 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.'
I first read Wither over 18 months ago and Fever a year ago and so I found I struggled a bit to remember what happened. Ideally I think you need to read all three books together to get the full impact and enjoyment from them as I found I was a bit distant from past events by the time I got to read Sever. I really enjoyed Wither but, as with a lot of trilogies, I found that Fever wasn't quite as good. I think that possibly this is to do with the fact that the story moves on from its original setting. You become accustomed to the world that exists in the first main setting and then it all changes and you lose the sense of being fully immersed in that world. The same happens in The Hunger Games, Matched and Delirium (or at least it did for me). Add this to the delay in being able to read Sever and it did ruin the reading experience for me. If I have the time I would definitely love to read all three together, but sadly I can't for the time being and so I'm sorry if this review lets the trilogy down. It also means I'm not really sure how to approach this review. I don't feel able to review Sever on its own but it's been so long since I read the first two instalments that I can't really do them justice with Sever either and so I hope this makes sense!
In Sever you get to know Cecily well but Linden becomes more distant, reflecting how Rhine's relationships with them both changes. Rhine herself remains fairly constant although she isn't as strong a character as she started out and instead goes with the flow a little more, whereas before she was much more pro-active. Throughout all three novels DeStefano manages to get across the sense of hopelessness that Rhine feels at times and you become desperate for it all to work out, yet you cannot easily predict what will happen. When death visits it is unexpected and is thus quite powerful, although DeStefano didn't quite manage to bring out the strength of emotion as successfully. In a way the style of writing makes it seem like Rhine is numb throughout a lot of this book as she experiences certain traumatic events but you almost feel as if she shouldn't be. Like Rhine I found I couldn't help but like Linden's uncle. He's brilliantly written and was a great addition to the cast in this book. The titles also reflect the contents of each novel which makes a nice change as recently there have been a lot of books with catchy titles that don't accurately or easily associate with their contents. Rhine begins to wither when she is trapped in Linden's house in book 1, she develops a fever after her escape in book 2 and there is the severing of various connections in book 3.
One of the odd things about this trilogy is that it is so involved in the affairs of one family yet is supposed to have repercussions on a larger scale without ever really connecting with those in power. This has the effect of removing some of the realism and so lets the trilogy down a little. Perhaps it would work better if the story stuck with the consequences for Linden's family and left out those for the rest of the country, or went into more depth about those outside of the family to help make the consequences that little bit more believable. I also found the ending wasn't as strong as I anticipated. In the end it was all a bit too easy and there were no real negative consequences even though murder is committed, two characters could potentially have been seriously ill, and everyone wins even when logically they shouldn't be able to have access to certain things.
Having said all of this, I still really enjoyed the trilogy. I loved the idea of a society that is suffering in this way (in a novel, not in real life!). The helplessness of the characters is brilliantly written and you really do begin to fear Vaughn. The world is convincing. The characters are vivid. Yes it could perhaps have been done better but it is still quite good and is worth a read. Just don't expect to feel all warm and fuzzy and full of soppy romantic feelings by the end!
I give Wither 7.5/10, Fever 6/10 and Sever 6.5/10 and so overall I give The Chemical Garden trilogy 6.5/10 :)
Title: Sever (The Chemical Garden trilogy)
Author: Lauren DeStefano
Publisher: Harper Voyager
Teenage Fiction
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