My grandmother was twelve when she got married. Fourteen when she gave birth to her first child. By the time she was thirty, she had given birth to seven children.

I'm telling you this to give you a little perspective on where I'm coming from. A culture where child brides are not so far in the past that we can't see their faces. A social order where things we can't imagine today were not only accepted, but natural. Indian mythology is filled with stories of polygamy — a king with three wives, a queen with five husbands. These are the stories I grew up with, ingrained seamlessly into my culture. This may be why some of the things that disturb people about Wither don't seem quite as unnatural and unbelievable to me.

Ideally, I should give Wither four stars. The world building pretty much sucks, to be honest. There is a token acknowledgement of a debilitating virus, one that kills all the young women at the age of twenty, and young men at the age of twenty four. I'm always unconvinced by age-determined viruses, especially when they are so specific. Can you think of one, just one disease we have right now that would attack at person at a specific age? With no variables? I can't either, and that is the first point at which the world building falls short.

The second is the complete lack of detail that goes into building this dystopian society. There are very many, many descriptions of the dresses and the house and the holograms, but none whatsoever of the real world outside the privileged set that Rhine is introduced to. When you're building an alternate universe, you have envision every aspect of it. If only a section of North America is left unsubmerged (which is pretty unconvincing in and of itself) then would an industrialized society such as the one described in Wither still work? Where are the crops grown? Where are the raw materials processed? In the absence of most of the world's population, where are they finding the labour for even the bare necessities, let alone house constructions and clothing manufacture and soap opera production? If all the children in this world are dying young, where are they finding the time and guidance to learn skilled trades that would keep all of the technology functioning? Where is the religion? If there's one thing that comes to the fore at the edge of the world's destruction, it's religion. Too many questions that are left conveniently unanswered.

But I am willing to forgive the flaws in the world building (as I did in A Long, Long Sleep) because of the sheer beauty of the writing. If there's one thing that can suck me in and hold me captive, it's beautiful prose. And Lauren De Stefano's prose is world class. What really caught me about this book was the human element. It just happens with some characters, you know? They're not just interesting, they're almost real. And with Wither, that didn't happen with just one character, but almost all of them! I found myself connecting, really connecting, on a level deeper than words, with all of the wounded, desperate people in this story.

The story is complex and saturated with emotion. It is the emotion that throbs behind every sentence that really gives this book its character. The plot unfolds beautifully, and Rhine is the perfect central character, smart and tough, but also so very vulnerable. When she is first stolen and sold as a bride to a House Governor, she is full of anger and pain. She is determined to hate her husband, the cause of so much misery and death. Her only goal is escape, her beacon the freedom to live her short life and die in a place and a life of her choosing. This ambition shapes her actions throughout the book, but it doesn't make her a single dimensional character. She begins to develop feelings for one of the servants sold into captivity; she forms a bond with her sister-wives; she even slowly begins to understand and care for her husband, so hapless and oblivious.

And Linden. Linden just broke my heart. I've read some reviews that talk about his lack of spine, but to me, Linden was never a weak character. He's one of the most powerful ones in the story, in fact. In the beginning, I was inclined to hate him, much as Rhine did. But DeStefano pulled the rug out from under my feet. He's such a mixture of affection and dependency and naïveté. He is as much a victim of circumstance and manipulation as any of the sister-wives, a fact that only slowly becomes obvious to the reader and to Rhine. Here's what I admired about DeStefano's writing: she made me like Linden before she revealed his ignorance about the death and destruction surrounding the world around him. I felt almost schizophrenic towards the end of the book, with one half of my mind urging Rhine towards choice and freedom, and the other half urging her to stay, just for Linden.

Rhine's bond with her sister-wives is also a huge plus point for this book. From initial distance and distrust, she slowly begins to form a bond with them, to truly become their sister. Even with Rose, the first wife who dies before her marriage, she manages to form a sympathetic relationship. She cares deeply about Jenna, the withdrawn, tortured recluse and Cecily, the child trembling on the brink of adulthood and too blind to see what she's missing. The subtle loss of Cecily's childhood and her ignorance of its value was especially chilling and beautifully drawn.

I like the fact that DeStefano realistically portrays Rhine's conflict between staying and going. Even as she acknowledges the lure of freedom, Rhine worries about her newfound family, and is seduced by the idea of living out her life in the comfort and solicitude of Linden's home.

Every character tugged a separate heartstring, from the little domestic Dierdre, to Gabriel, so very much in love and so very helpless to do anything about it. I'm glad the romance took a backseat in this story, without ever quite going away. It wasn't all desperate declarations of love and affirmations of undying passion. Instead it was one thread to add to all the other threads tangling together in Rhine's complicated life.

And over all of it was the shining theme of freedom, never really pushed in my face, but woven throughout the story. Every time Rhine is in danger of getting too complacent, she remembers what real freedom is, no matter how uncomfortable and painful achieving it may be. Rhine is a character I will remember for a long time, strong and courageous and pragmatic and dreamy and smart and vulnerable and so very real.

I'm not sure I would classify this book as YA. Lauren DeStefano's prose is solid and stately, complex and layered, with ideas and emotions that require a certain level of experience and maturity to resonate with a reader. But personally, this is a book that has found a place in my heart, and also taught me that dissing a book before trying it for myself is a Very Bad Idea.

Disclosure: An ARC of this book was provided to me by the publishers for review purposes. No external considerations affected this review.