Sever by Lauren DeStefano

#3 in the Chemical Garden Series
Published February 12, 2013 by Simon & Schuster
1 Star

Goodreads Review
Time is running out for Rhine in this conclusion to the New York Times bestselling Chemical Garden Trilogy.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.

Review:  I am a literature sadist.  I don't know why, but I have a sick need to finish every book that I've started, no matter how painful, stupid, or rage-inducing.  I really did not like Sever, nor the Chemical Garden series as a whole.  I think this story could have definitely been a stand alone because all of the plot really happened in the first book and the second and third were full of pretty prose of little consequence.  I was particularly disappointed with this series because there were so many really interesting ways this story could have gone and a lot of great topics that could have been explored but none were really committed to which just left for a weak series that didn't say anything.

Sever was a very monotonous ending to the series where nothing really happened and none of our questions were answered.  The first third of the book was Rhine hanging out at Lindon's uncle's house (did we know about this uncle before book 3?  I don't think so, and this character suddenly living just down the road was very convenient) doing nothing.  I thought finding her brother was really important but she's really not in any hurry to do anything other than putz around.  I also was wondering what was going on with Gabriel, but Rhine must really have an out of sight, out of mind personality because I don't think she spared one thought for him for at least 200 pages.  But you know what, Rhine and Linden should have stayed together because they're both as exciting as a bump on a log covered with a wet blanket.  I seriously don't think I've read two more wishy washy characters in my life.  The only semi redeemable character in Sever is Cecily (I know I was surprised too).  There was some character growth there and Cecily actually took some action in this book.  I couldn't believe it.

I also had huge problems with the general plot of Sever and how the big issues of the world were glossed over or just not addressed at all.  I don't want to post too many spoilers, but the big revelations about Rhine's parent's work on genetics or Vaugh's motivations behind his terrible abuses or how the world because the messed up society felt so contrived, like the author didn't know how to tie things up so she just brushed it under the rug with the barest of explanations.  The plot of this series is so sloppy, it's laughable.  All of the pretty prose in the world can't replace a well thought out story.

The other aspect of Sever that is really damaging is sex, namely the lack of sex that our main character has.  I mentioned this in my review for Fever, but to have a world where young girls are forced into marriage and prostitution as basically broodmares, and then put your main character into situation after situation where all of her peers are forced into sex but somehow miraculously she doesn't have to have sex is so ridiculous I can't even properly form words.  This is the biggest cop out I have ever seen.  If you're going to create a world like this and put your character in those situations (I mean, she was in a prostitution circus FFS) then you have to follow through, even if that means bad things have to happen to that character.  If you don't back up your world building the entire series falls apart and I won't be able to take the story or the characters seriously.  That's a problem with YA in general I think, writers don't want to do anything really bad to their characters so they put them in dangerous situations but don't actually put them in any danger. 

Sever, and frankly the entire Chemical Garden series, is just a hot mess.  Weak characters, weak plot, and very weak world building makes up this train wreck of a series.  Flowery prose cannot make up for this pile of pseudo scientific drivel. 

Fever by Lauren DeStefeno

#2 in The Cemical Garden Series
Published February 21, 2012 by Simon & Schuster
1 Star

 Goodreads Review
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.

Review:  I didn't really like Wither, but I didn't hate it either.  I was put off by the lack of scientific support for the world building but I was interested in the characters and the drama that unfolded.  I thought Wither presented some interesting topics on forced marriages and human trafficking as well as the ethics of genetic manipulation and that in Fever we were going to explore these themes in greater depths.  Unfortunately these topics were barely touched on in this weak follow up.

Fever really suffers from middle book syndrome.  It's almost like the wordiness and overly poetic writing is trying to make up for the lack of character development, world building, or any real plot.    I feel like everything in this book, from the main character to the writing to the world building to even the book itself, is very surface level. Everything is pretty and shiny, but there's no substance, no meat, to anything.  It's like this book is saying "Look at how beautifully I described these girl's dresses and hair! Ignore the fact that they are child prostitutes, let me wax poetic about the fabric of their sex tent!"  The writing is very wishy washy, to the point where I wasn't sure what was happening (specifically with Gabriel and the cage and with Vaughn and his testing).  We're never told clearly what is happening, and instead of creating tension, it only creates confusion.

It's all very disappointing because I really liked the idea of the sex carnival and I thought it was an interesting setting to talk about tough issues like child prostitution.  But it's almost like the author presents these terrible situations but doesn't fully commit her writing or her main character to those situations.  Rhine gets exempt from abusive situations again and again (not having to consummate her marriage to Lindon, not having to prostitute with strangers).  Instead Rhine watches other children be victimized and doesn't do anything to help them other than feel kind of bad.  I feel like there is some indirect victim blaming going on here, that the child prostitutes are dirty and bad for having sex and that Rhine must stay pure and good because she is the main character.  I do not know if that was the intention, but that is the road Fever heads down and it is a very damaging and dangerous path.

Fever is a truly disappointing novel not just as a sequel, but as a missed opportunity to actually say something of value.  It just flits from topic to topic without fully committing to anything.

Tris & Izzie by Mette Ivie Harrison

 Published October 11, 2011 by EgmontUSA
egalley for review from netgalley
1 star

Goodreads Review
A modern retelling of the German fairy tale "Tristan and Isolde," Tris and Izzie is about a young witch named Izzie who is dating Mark King, the captain of the basketball team and thinks her life is going swimmingly well. Until -- she makes a love potion for her best friend Brangane and then ends up taking it herself accidentally, and falling in love with Tristan, the new guy at school.

Review:  Tris & Izzie is a first on a few different levels for me.  It's the first book I've ever read on my new Kindle, the first book I've ever received for review from netgalley, and my first ever one star review on this blog.  It's very rare for me to give out a less than two star rating, but there is nothing remotely redeeming about this book.  I'll try and hold in my negativity, but there's gonna be some snark and sarcasm.  Even I'm not that good.  (oh and p.s. this review may get spoilery, so if you really care (but why would you) you have been warned.)

First let's talk about the few things I did like about this book.  The cover is beautiful and it's what drew me to the book in the first place.  Not like I could see the pretty cover on my Kindle, but I could imagine it.  Ok, the other things I liked about this book are.....um....well there was....I liked the part where.....did I mention the pretty cover?

Let's talk about the characters.  Every single character in this book has bi-polar disorder.  One minute they're professing their undying love for each other and then not even ten pages later they're punching each other in the face.  No seriously, a boy punched his girlfriend in the face.  And she was cool with it.  I'm sorry but if my boyfriend punched me in the face I wouldn't be ok with it, I would be lying on the ground sobbing in a pool of my own nose blood.  Izzie is probably the worst.  She decides that her BFF Branna is too depressed and mopey and the best way to fix it is to give her an irreversible love potion with a guy they met literally TEN MINUTES AGO.  AND this was after Branna said she didn't want a love potion, that she wanted her love to be real.  Wow, some friend no?  And then when Mark (Izzie's "perfect" boyfriend (he's the one that punched her in the face)) almost drinks the love potion instead of Branna what does Izzie do?  Drinks it instead.  She doesn't, oh I don't know, pour it ON THE GROUND!?  No she has to drink it and then she acts all pissed off about being in love with a boy that's not her boyfriend.  Hum, maybe you should have thought about that before you decided to trick your best friend? 

These characters play musical chairs with their relationships.  They swap partners faster than the cast of Jersey Shore, I'm not exaggerating.  Mark goes from being in love with Izzie to Branna in literally five minutes.  Izzie goes from loving Mark to thinking that she never really loved him and that he and Branna are a much better match, even though earlier in the book she was super pissed that Branna had a crush on her boyfriend.  Tristan is just an idiot.

AND THEN there's the "magic" in this book.  It makes no sense other than to provide a greater enemy than this weird-o love square.  It's poorly supported and even more poorly executed.  The enemies and fight sequences are frankly, lame.  The ending made me want to gag it was so happily ever after.  I wish it had been like the real Tristan and Isolde and everyone had just died. 

Sigh.  Ok, end rant.  As a side note, if the author/publisher/editor/anyone involved with this book ever reads this, I don't mean to be a douche.  Promise.  But I just really disliked this book (ok loathed may be a more appropriate word), and I'm not going to try and sugar coat it.  Hope you're ok with that.