Review: Fever

Fever (The Chemical Garden Trilogy #2) by Lauren DeStefano
Release Date ~ February 21, 2012
Simon & Schuster Children's Publishing
ISBN13:  9781442409071
ARC received from publisher

Goodreads Synopsis:
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.

Fair warning: this review has some spoilers for Wither, but doesn't contain spoilers for Fever.

I loved Wither for it's twisted and rather disturbing storyline, and I was hoping that Fever would continue in a similar way. Fever picks up right where Wither left off; and in typical dystopian trilogy fashion, it has what I call "middle book syndrome" (this isn't a necessarily a bad thing) where it follows the journey of Rhine once she's escaped.

And I was SO excited and completely, 100% captiviated by Fever and it fulfilled all of my hopes and expectations for it- making another fabulous read from Lauren DeStefano!

1. A world outside the Mansion:
   Since Rhine's no longer trapped in the Mansion, we finally get a chance to see (along with her) exactly what the world outside the Mansion is like; there's definitely a lot more world building in that aspect. And it is so disturbingly freaky, and just as twisted as the rest of the plot has been!
2. Literal shivers:
   There is something so perversed about the world in which Wither takes place, and I honestly find so many of the events taking place, supposedly normal and rather routine occurences, to be constantly shocking. And Lauren writes in such a way, that the impact of this seems almost greater.
3. Character development:
   We really get to see a couple characters significantly grow and change throughout Fever, rather than just being introduced to them as was the case with Wither. Rhine and Gabriel don't find that everything works out easily for them, and they're often put in difficult situations... and the question is how they'll adapt to those circumstances. But we definitely get to see new sides to them, along with some new characters.

The Chemical Garden trilogy is one book series which has readily stuck with me and I just can't get enough of it! This was one of my must-read books for 2012 and I KNOW that 2013 is going to be even better with the last (sad!) book!