Wither by Lauren DeStefano.
I had such high hopes. Look at the pretty book:
First off, I had only seen the cover art in thumbnail form and did not notice until I got my hands on the book that there are circles drawn all over it. Those circles ruined the cover art for me. Before, I thought the art was beautiful and sad and evocative of a very particular mood. After I noticed the circles, I was annoyed. I encourage you to click on that picture and enlarge it so you can see: there is a circle around a bird in a cage, a circle around her wedding band, and a line connecting those circles. They are literally connecting the dots for you because they don't expect you to be able to recognize the symbolism on your own.
That alone should have stopped me.
Alas, it did not. I read the book. The whole damn book. About fifty pages in, I started flagging pages with things that made no sense to me. HUGE, glaring inconsistencies and errors in editing. I made a total of nineteen flags. In a 350 page book- that's a lot of errors. I won't list them all here, I put the most egregious ones in my review on Goodreads, and you're welcome to go read that if you want.
(Side note: I hate writing mean reviews. Hate it. This is by far my meanest review ever, and I do not plan on ever reaching this level of snark again in my whole life. However, this is my most popular review and I gained a LOT of followers on goodreads the day this review went up... I think goodreads users are attracted to meanness. Just saying.)
I was so, so very disappointed in Wither. I really thought I was going to love this book, the buzz around it has been deafening and I generally like YA Dystopia. But this was bad. So bad that I didn't pick up a new book for nearly four days afterward: this book sapped my will to read.
Now, I will make one very big concession here: the prose is beautiful. That's the big thing everybody is really raving about: how beautiful the writing is. And I will admit DeStefano has more than enough talent when it comes to writing a pretty sentence. She captures a mood and she writes sentences, paragraphs and even pages that are just lovely. The story is what dragged her down. I actually look forward to her writing something else because I think she has talent... I just don't want to read about her pseudo-scientific-crapola anymore.
Another side note: This book was turned into one freaking cool cake:
A blogging friend of mine posted a bookish meme, after reading it on another blogging friend's site. I can't not participate! This post was written in response to the 30 Days of Books.
The full list:
Day 01 – The best book you read last year
Day 02 – A book that you’ve read more than 3 times
Day 03 – Your favorite series
Day 04 – Favorite book of your favorite series
Day 05 – A book that makes you happy
Day 06 – A book that makes you sad
Day 07 – Most underrated book
Day 08 – Most overrated book
Day 09 – A book you thought you wouldn’t like but ended up loving
Day 10 – Favorite classic book
Day 11 – A book you hated
Day 12 – A book you used to love but don’t anymore
Day 13 – Your favorite writer
Day 14 – Favorite book of your favorite writer
Day 15 – Favorite male character
Day 16 – Favorite female character
Day 17 – Favorite quote from your Favorite book
Day 18 – A book that disappointed you
Day 19 – Favorite book turned into a movie
Day 20 – Favorite romance book
Day 21 – Favorite book from your childhood
Day 22 – Favorite book you own
Day 23 – A book you wanted to read for a long time but still haven’t
Day 24 – A book that you wish more people would’ve read
Day 25 – A character who you can relate to the most
Day 26 – A book that changed your opinion about something
Day 27 – The most surprising plot twist or ending
Day 28 – Favorite title
Day 29 – A book everyone hated but you liked
Day 30 – Your Favorite book of all time
