Fever book review

The second book in the chemical garden trilogy. Don't read if you don't want spoilers (:

Synopsis: 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.

I read the first book to this series, Wither, and really liked it! So i had high expectations for this book and was really excited assuming it was going to be another great story. Unfortunately is was an underwhelming and disappointing sequel, and had a terrible case of the second book syndrome!

Fever picks up straight where Wither finishes. Rhine and Gabriel have just escaped the mansion and are finding that life on the run isn't easy. They find themselves in a prostitution camp where they are a two person cabaret act to entertain the wealthy men. The camp has its glitz and glammer but they aren't fooled and know that their chances of escaping are slim. But yet they manage to escape and just as Vaughn arrives. 

After that, is when the book got disappointing and fell apart. 

In the first book, the plot was the main thing that kept you wanting more. There were secrets and surprises. But now that everything is out, there's nothing. There were no knew twists or turns added, nothing to keep you interested or to hold onto. In the first book, i LOVED the way Lauren Destefano wrote the book and her style. But in this book, it was pretty weak. It didn't have that BAM impact that Wither did, which was one of the main reasons why I loved Wither so much. Rhine and Gabriel argued and snapped at each other constantly, and Rhine was always thinking about Linden! I was like come on, you chose Gabriel! And there really wasn't a choice anyway, because she never really wanted Linden. Wasn't this book about how she ran away from him because she hated her life as his wife? Why did it seem like this was a love triangle, when it was never one to begin with? 

After they escape the came, the make a journey back to Rhine's home. They run into some trouble here and there, but nothing important ever happened. They find the her home is abandoned and that there is pretty much nothing left indicating that Rowan has left. All this stuff happens in between that really did not interest me and all of a sudden Rhine is back at the mansion having tests done on her by Vaughn. There was no fight, no struggle to stop from going back there. She just went, like come on! She had gone through that whole journey to escape and she thought oh I'm going to die may as well go back. 

Overall, i found Fever a major let down and it was lacking in all the aspects i loved about Wither. It had no real emotion or relationships. New characters? I can hardly remember their names. Everything that was apart of Wither became irrelevant and practically disappeared. None of my questions were answered and nothing happened. We found out nothing new and i felt like the whole book was just a waste. They escape, get caught again, then escape, then get caught... i think you get the pattern. I felt as though this book could have been something so much more, everything that happened between the end of wither and the end of Fever was really nothing and could have been cut... and the story would still pretty much be the same with a few exceptions.

I love Lauren Destefano and she is awesome, but this was a disappointing read. I'm not really excited about the next book, but I'll probably read it because I'm a bit OCD about reading a whole series.

2.5 smileys