Book Review: Fever by Lauren DeStefano

Title: Fever

Author: Lauren DeStefano

Series: The Chemical Garden

Publisher: Simon & Schuster Children's Publishing

Genre: Young Adult, Dystopia

Format: Paperback, 341 pages

Published: February 21st 2012

My rating: 5/5

Summary (from goodreads):

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.




My thoughts: I was sooo excited when I finally received this book. I've been waiting for the sequel to Wither for about 8 months. Yeah, I was counting the days. I was afraid I'd be disappointed, but I wasn't, luckily! I can't say that Fever was better than Wither though and I missed some of the characters there were in Wither also. But we got a bunch of new characters in the meantime so that's good. I liked how we got to spend more time with Gabriel and really see how he cares for Rhine. Obviously there wasn't much Linden in it until the end. The story in general was very different from the first book but also great! I was sad when it ended. Lauren DeStefano's writing is so beautiful. I kept wanting to turn the pages faster and faster. At the end I was almost pulling my own hairs out. I'm actually very sad it ended and I can't wait for the final book in the series. It can't come fast enough for me! Now about the two guys; Gabriel and Linden. In Wither I didn't know who I liked better. Most people seem to like Gabriel more. Now after reading Fever I'm definitely team Linden. I can't help but have a soft spot for him. The new characters were very interesting. Madame for one I thought was a peculiar character. I also liked Silas a lot. My favorite character from Wither was Rhine and it still is. She's not one of those annoying whiny female maincharacters like there are a lot of them out there lately. I wished Rowan would've come into this one, but I suppose that's for the next book. Vaughn as always was very creepy and evil and it saddens me how Rhine had to tell him about his father. Cecily... She seems to have matured a little, but on the other hand she doesn't seem to changed a lot. Also there must be something about Rhine that's special. It kept coming back to that. So I can't wait to find out what exactly is going on.
I just love The Chemical Garden world so much. It's dark, mysterious and unexpected. Lauren DeStefano has once again written a beautiful book that kept my attention through all of it!