Sever (The Chemical Garden #3) by Lauren DeStefano

* * * 3/4

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.

I remember Fever felt like such a head trip I wondered how easily I’d fall back into this dysfunctional and creepy world. I didn’t have a problem at all.  No longer a runaway, Linden, unsurprisingly welcomes Rhine back into the fold even if he’s a bit cold or distant towards her. The guy really is too good to be true. He’s angry at her for leaving, confused by their friendship, yet tries to protect her from his overbearing father. Cecily, her sister-wife is also happy to have Rhine back in their lives. They do make an odd family and it gets even more bizarre once they meet up with Linden’s uncle, Reed. Where Housemaster Vaughn is a manipulative, untrustworthy control freak, Reed expresses more personality and prefers you not get in his way.

I really wasn’t sure how the story was going to develop. I was surprised by what I thought was a lack of urgency on Rhine’s part to get out there and find her brother.  It just felt as if she’d lost some of her spark. May be it’s because she’s recovering from Vaughn’s induced illness, maybe she just genuinely wanted to make peace with Lindley and Cecily, who knows, but something just felt off about her staying in place.  But what really bothered me was how many seemingly unrelated events were connected. It seemed almost too convenient.  

I guess I was expecting complications throughout the book because that’s what I remembered about Fever. Rhine and Gabriel were either on the run, caught and held captive or in hiding. So when things in Sever moved at a less frenzied pace, I just felt antsy and cautiously waited for something to jump out at me from the corner. That didn’t quite happen. That being said, I still enjoyed reading Sever. I think one of the best parts of it is Rhine’s eye-opening discovery of who her parents really were.  That turns her on her head and shifts her beliefs.

The Chemical Garden Trilogy has been such a pleasure to experience. Lauren DeStefano has laid out an incredibly detailed description of a world gone desperate. So desperate that it would gamble with its children’s futures leading to such disastrous consequences.  Sever brings to end a very long and hard-fought year for Rhine.  It’s definitely worth the read.  And if you’re into dystopian novels with a sense of the dramatic, or even enjoyed The Masque Of The Red Death like I very much did, then this entire series is perfect for you!

~ Bel

Fever by Lauren DeStefano

* * * 1/2

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 – surrounding 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 this 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.

I was so eager to read Fever that I’d forgotten how disturbing this story can be. It took me a good three chapters to get over it and allow myself to get sucked in. Where Wither took place within the secure and insulated confines of the mansion, Fever finds our heroes on the run exposed to a damaged, volatile and unsympathetic world.

Rhine and Gabriel are instantly dragged into a sinister environment in the scarlet district run by Madame, where apparently Rhine will be the new attraction in this circus-like brothel. Rhine plays along to buy time for herself and Gabriel employing the same tactic she used with Lindley – getting Madame to be comfortable with her and earning her trust. However, Madame is a very unstable character who gives Rhine plenty of the "heebie-jeebies". There were a few times when I thought things would get so wretched. Thankfully, DeStefano sidestepped a potentially terrifying scenario but she didn’t eliminate it entirely. Rhine and Gabriel eventually make their escape but not before a couple of close encounters with some unsavory people.

  

When they finally reach their destination, Rhine is destroyed to find that the home she left – that she held firm in her memory to keep her strong – is no longer the way she remembered it. And … her brother isn’t there. Scouring the streets for some clue, they end up boarding at a foster home. It’s tight quarters but it’s nice that Rhine and Gabriel have some semblance of security.

As Rhine broods over the way things have changed, Gabriel is taking it in for the first time. It's gutting to hear Rhine describe the world as it used to be through her memories and what her parents had shared with her.

Fever has some disturbing and uncomfortable moments that had me on edge but this is the world they live in. Each turn of the page like a hesitating look around the corner to see what's lurking on the other side. Even with the disappointments they've experienced, Rhine and Gabriel manage to keep their humanity intact. By the end of the book, you see how wickedly DeStefano has twisted and spun the story leading to a surprising cliffhanger!

~ Bel

A Peek in the Biblio-Bin - #4

In My Mailbox is a weekly meme hosted by The Story Siren. It is a way for bloggers to share what books they have won, received for review, bought from the bookstore, borrowed from the library or friend, etc.

This week Bel is giving you a peek into her section of the Biblio-Bin.

As her freshman classmates move into dorms at Cornell University, Olivia Somerset suffers a nervous breakdown. When months of coaxing and analyzing fail to rouse Olivia from her stupor, big sister Miranda decides the sisters should fly off to Barcelona for some "vacation therapy."

When a mistake at their Barcelona hostel leaves the Somersets in a large co-ed dorm room, Olivia and Miranda are saved by kindly Mr. Brown and his son Greg, who happily volunteer to surrender their private room. But while Olivia feels an instant connection with brooding Greg Brown, Miranda sides with fellow guest and cocky American travel writer Lenny:

The Browns are just plain weird, and must be avoided at all costs.

In the midst of urbane Peruvian priests-in-training and Scottish soccer fans, from the shops of La Rambla to the waters of the Mediterranean to the soaring heights of Montjuic, Miranda works to protect her still-fragile sister while Olivia struggles to understand her burgeoning adulthood, her feelings for Greg, and the fear that makes the next step in her life so impossible to take.

Inspired by E. M. Forster's classic novel A Room with a View, debut author Hannah Sternberg's Queens of All the Earth is a poetic journey of young love and self-awakening set against the beauty of Catalonia. Teenagers and adults alike will be riveted and moved by this coming-of-age novel about the conflicting hearts and minds of two very different sisters.

Summer 1869, and Sherlock Holmes and his friend Irene celebrate her sixteenth birthday by attending the theater to watch a celebrated magician make a real dragon appear on stage. It is the London sensation. Sherlock and Irene meet the magician, Alistair Hemsworth – just as he is arrested for the murder of his rival, The Wizard of Nottingham.

It seems that traces of the missing Wizard’s blood and his spectacles were found in Hemsworth’s secret studio. Hemsworth has a motive: not only is the Wizard his rival, but he also caused a scandal when he lured Hemsworth’s wife away. But is Hemsworth guilty? Sherlock has his doubts, and soon, so does the reader.

With humor and plot turns as dizzying as a narrow London lane, Shane Peacock invites his readers into a fascinating world, and a fresh adventure with one of literature’s favorite characters. The Boy Sherlock Holmes series is an international success with readers and reviewers alike.

The breathtaking conclusion the New York Times bestselling Hush, Hush saga!

The noise between Patch and Nora is gone. They’ve overcome the secrets riddled in Patch’s dark past…bridged two irreconcilable worlds…faced heart-wrenching tests of betrayal, loyalty, and trust…and all for a love that will transcend the boundary between heaven and earth. Armed with nothing but their absolute faith in each other, Patch and Nora enter a desperate fight to stop a villain who holds the power to shatter everything they’ve worked for—and their love—forever..

Belly measures her life in summers. Everything good, everything magical happens between the months of June and August. Winters are simply a time to count the weeks until the next summer, a place away from the beach house, away from Susannah, and most importantly, away from Jeremiah and Conrad. They are the boys that Belly has known since her very first summer — they have been her brother figures, her crushes, and everything in between. But one summer, one wonderful and terrible summer, the more everything changes, the more it all ends up just the way it should have been all along.

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What if you knew exactly when you’d die? At age sixteen, Rhine Ellery has four years to live. Thanks to a botched effort to create a perfect race, all females live to age twenty, and males live to age twenty-five. While geneticists seek a miracle antidote, the world is crumbling: Orphans roam the streets, crime and poverty have skyrocketed, and polygamy abounds.

When Rhine is kidnapped and sold as a bride, she vows to escape. But then her husband, Linden, exposes her to a world of wealth and decadence she never knew existed. Even if she can’t quite hate her husband, though, she knows to fear her father-in-law, an eccentric doctor bent on finding the antidote and who may or may not be hoarding corpses in his basement lab. At the same time, Rhine is growing dangerously close to Gabriel, a house servant. Will she be able to escape the mansion—before her time runs out?

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In Beatrice Prior’s dystopian Chicago world, society is divided into five factions, each dedicated to the cultivation of a particular virtue—Candor (the honest), Abnegation (the selfless), Dauntless (the brave), Amity (the peaceful), and Erudite (the intelligent). On an appointed day of every year, all sixteen-year-olds must select the faction to which they will devote the rest of their lives. For Beatrice, the decision is between staying with her family and being who she really is—she can’t have both. So she makes a choice that surprises everyone, including herself.

During the highly competitive initiation that follows, Beatrice renames herself Tris and struggles alongside her fellow initiates to live out the choice they have made. Together they must undergo extreme physical tests of endurance and intense psychological simulations, some with devastating consequences. As initiation transforms them all, Tris must determine who her friends really are—and where, exactly, a romance with a sometimes fascinating, sometimes exasperating boy fits into the life she's chosen. But Tris also has a secret, one she's kept hidden from everyone because she's been warned it can mean death. And as she discovers unrest and growing conflict that threaten to unravel her seemingly perfect society, she also learns that her secret might help her save those she loves . . . or it might destroy her.

Debut author Veronica Roth bursts onto the YA scene with the first book in the Divergent series—dystopian thrillers filled with electrifying decisions, heartbreaking betrayals, stunning consequences, and unexpected romance.

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