Review: Fever by Lauren DeStefano

Title: Fever
Author: Lauren DeStefano
Publisher: Simon & Schuster for Young Readers
Age Group: Young Adult
Category:  Dystopian/ Romance
Release date: February 21st, 2012
Pages: 341 (Hardcover)
Rating: 4 out of 5
Source: Won
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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 this suspenseful sequel to Wither, we find out what it's like for Rhine to get another bittersweet taste of the little freedom she's given while she makes her way back to Manhattan in search of her brother.  Fever is filled with more adventure, more characters, and more disturbing scenes that will keep you turning the pages in anticipation.

Though a majority of Wither took place in Housemaster Vaughn's mansion and we saw it as no more than a prison to the girls, Fever took a different approach.  Here are Rhine and Gabriel, attempting to make their way back across the country to live freely for the next few years.  They're no longer trapped and they've proven that giving up gets you nowhere.  Unfortunately, as soon as they leave, they're faced with more evil.

When Rhine was a little girl, her dad told her stories of carnivals, cotton candy and ferris wheels; they seemed like magic until she accidentally steps foot in this one.  A first generation they call Madame gathers girls, dresses them up and renames them different colors of the rainbow then sells them to any man that wants to leave behind a little loneliness for the night.  Madame made my skin crawl as much as Vaughn did.  They both used people in horrible ways for their own profit.  When Rhine and Gabriel are finally able to escape, they have a little more on their shoulders than when they left the mansion.

I loved every bit of this story.  The new characters were interesting and memorable and Rhine's determination is larger than ever.  Though the readers are all rooting for her, I think most of us are able to see how naive she was.  Although she was able to escape the mansion, the outside world is no better.  The images that the author was able to put in my head are still difficult to shake out.  Though this may not be my favorite series of books, I'll keep reading purely for Lauren DeStefano's brilliant writing.