Reviewed By: Blaire Daniels
Release Date: 22/03/2011
A Handmaid’s Tale for a new generation…
Sixteen-year-old Rhine Ellery has only four years left to live when she is kidnapped by the Gatherers and forced into a polygamous marriage. Now she has one purpose: to escape, find her twin brother, and go home – before her time runs out forever.
What if you knew exactly when you would die?
Thanks to modern science, every human being has become a ticking genetic time bomb – males only live to age twenty-five and females only live to age twenty. In this bleak landscape, young girls are kidnapped and forced into polygamous marriages to keep the population from dying out.
When sixteen-year-old Rhine Ellery is taken by the Gatherers to become a bride, she enters a world of wealth and privilege. Despite her husband Linden’s genuine love for her, and a tenuous trust among her sister wives, Rhine has one purpose: to escape – to find her twin brother and go home.
But Rhine has more to contend with than losing her freedom. Linden’s eccentric father is bent on finding an antidote to the genetic virus that is getting closer to taking his son, even if it means collecting corpses in order to test his experiments. With the help of Gabriel, a servant she trusts, Rhine attempts to break free, in the limited time she has left.
Review: A YA book about a post-apocalyptic world with a delicious cover? Sign me up. That was my initial thought when I first read the blurb and saw the book. Ahem, now having read it, my thoughts have changed drastically, here is what I think:
Lauren DeStefano manages to paint beautiful imagery and her sentences flow effortlessly into each other. However there is also something quite claustrophobic about the world. I know, I know, Rhine is locked away in a mansion- it's meant to be claustrophobic, but I don't know... I just don't believe completely in the world she had created. Inventive, dangerous and gorgeously described but believable? Eh, it's definitely not 100% there yet.
Rhine was a very cool and resourceful heroine though- not Katniss from Hunger Games cool, resourceful kind-of-level, but still she had some great moments (*SPOILER* Loved her violent thoughts, I was praying that they would come true as well).
The romance between Gabriel and Rhine is almost non-existent (*there were some nice scenes- not enough though!) but I did feel she laid some good groundwork for something to happen between them in the future. Oh- and don't get me started on her confusing and slightly disturbing relationship with her husband Linden *Shivers*.
Overall, I think the characters were the most gripping, Lauren DeStefano has an incredible way of making you empathise with each and every character. However although it has a lot of potential, it fell a bit flat for me. Hopefully the next book will explain some much needed answers!
Rating: 3.5/5 Hearts
Lauren DeStefano manages to paint beautiful imagery and her sentences flow effortlessly into each other. However there is also something quite claustrophobic about the world. I know, I know, Rhine is locked away in a mansion- it's meant to be claustrophobic, but I don't know... I just don't believe completely in the world she had created. Inventive, dangerous and gorgeously described but believable? Eh, it's definitely not 100% there yet.
Rhine was a very cool and resourceful heroine though- not Katniss from Hunger Games cool, resourceful kind-of-level, but still she had some great moments (*SPOILER* Loved her violent thoughts, I was praying that they would come true as well).
The romance between Gabriel and Rhine is almost non-existent (*there were some nice scenes- not enough though!) but I did feel she laid some good groundwork for something to happen between them in the future. Oh- and don't get me started on her confusing and slightly disturbing relationship with her husband Linden *Shivers*.
Overall, I think the characters were the most gripping, Lauren DeStefano has an incredible way of making you empathise with each and every character. However although it has a lot of potential, it fell a bit flat for me. Hopefully the next book will explain some much needed answers!
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