Book Review: Wither

Wither by Lauren DeStefano
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

This book opens with the quotation from T.S. Eliot "This is the way the world ends, not with a bang, but a whimper." I felt that same quote could apply to the ending of this book. I won't reiterate a summary . . .that's easy enough to find either through goodreads.com or Amazon, so I'm going to discuss how I thought this book fell short of its potential.

All throughout Rhine's story, there are hints of dark and horrible things happening within the mansion where she is imprisoned--the unwilling bride of a rich, sheltered boy, and sister-wife to two other girls. There is Housemaster Vaughn, the House Governor Linden's father, who is obsessed with finding a cure for the virus that takes male children at 25 and female children at 20. It is hinted that he dissects and experiments on corpses of those who've succumbed to the illness, including his son's first wife, Rose. There are even hints that he is a sadistic, cruel and evil man who would stop at nothing to ensure that his son is happy, which includes making sure his wives stay compliant. When they don't, he kills them or their babies.

But that's never actually proven.

And, really, as far as villains go, Vaughn didn't scare me. Not even a little. The wives and servants were terrified of him, but I was never given a significant reason. Sure, Jenna dies prematurely. Maybe he did something to her because she was troublesome, but that's still not proven. When he discovers that Rhine has feelings for the servant Gabriel, he removes him to the basement . . .but doesn't actually do anything horrible to him. I went along with it, however, because I was so sure there was going to be a culmination of Vaughn's atrocities, where all his evil-doings were revealed and Rhine faced him in the ultimate showdown, which, upon victory, would grant her her freedom.

Pffbt. Vaughn's horrible crimes are never proven, and Rhine never faces him. Instead, she and Gabriel escape into the snowy Florida night with the help of a nameless attendant. No pursuit follows. No life-or-death scenarios. It's such a simple escape, that it makes me wonder why it was such a big deal to escape.

I get that this is a trilogy and that the possibility for a showdown with Vaughn still exists, but it annoys me when such a promising book doesn't deliver.

Granted, I liked the book. I'll even pick up the next in the trilogy just to find out what happens. But if the second book doesn't show more depth, I'll probably stop there.

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