The last half of the book is just Rhine being delirious and sick and making strange decisions that are either the result of her sickness or the result of her awful characterization. But yes, most of the novel is one character or another wandering around in a state of fever. I really wasn’t expecting Fever to be quite so, well… literal.

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. 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. The two are determined to get to Manhattan, to relative safety with Rhine’s twin brother, Rowan. 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. Just as Rhine uncovers what plans await her, her fortune turns again. 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. Rhine and Gabriel have escaped the mansion, but danger is never far behind.

DRUGS/ ALCOHOL:teen “wives” drink wine at partiesįRONT COVER: GORGEOUS! The beautiful girl in a beautiful dress on the cover will make Wither an easy-sell in any library.Fever, by Lauren DeStefano, was published in 2012 by Simon & Schuster.

VIOLENCE: mild mainly just some talk of body dissection in the basement (implied and never specifically described).

SEXUALITY: medium forced marriage with intercourse a pregnant 13-year old “wife” discussion of prostitution as a way of life for many girls.

LANGUAGE: mild a light sprinkling of damns and GDs.

WHAT I DIDN’T LIKE: I loved the entire book. Even Rhine’s forced husband and captor Linden is likeable I felt almost as sorry for him as I did for his three wives. The characters are unique and drawn so well, readers will feel like they know them. From the first few pages, I was sucked into the story immediately and stayed riveted right up to the very last page. WHAT I LIKED: I LOVED, LOVED this book! This is DeStefano’s debut novel, and I look so forward to the next one. When 16-year old Rhine is kidnapped, sold, and forcibly married to a wealthy Florida landowner, she is determined escape to her luxurious prison and return to Manhattan to find her twin brother. To ensure survival, wealthy men can “buy” teen girls as brides. SUMMARY: In a future America, a deadly virus causes men to die at age 25, women at age 20.

Fever by Lauren DeStefano