Young Adult Book Reading Challenges discussion

What did you think of this Wither's dystopian world? Did it make sense to you? Do you think the world presented in this novel is a viable possibility for our future?

The disease and the world destruction, yeah, that might be possible. But I didn't think a world where most people are either very old or very young would function very well.

When the First Generation dies, most of the world's knowledge will die with it. They talked about jobs and factories. Who's running them? Who's going to maintain the machinery? There's no one to teach the youngest generation, and once someone reaches adulthood and is ready to contribute to the functions of society (business, science, medicine, commerce), they're dead.

The First Generation people are the only ones who can fix the problem and keep any semblence of society, but they seem to be either getting killed off (like Rhine's parents) or are busy with their own pursuits (parties and taking care of their families).

Rita, this was a big thing for me as well. I just can't imagine how such a world can effectively function if people die so young and there seems to be no visible structure to keep things going created by the First Gen. It is unclear how some people can maintain quite and affluent, technologically advanced life style in such circumstances.

It bothered me that Rhine cared more about her freedom than about solving the problem. I didn't like her father-in-law or his methods, but at least he was taking action to solving a very real problem that could end the human race.

Reading this book made me realize how many of the heroes I love the most are the ones who will throw themselves into harm's way to save someone else, no matter what it costs them personally.

Tatiana wrote: "What did you think of this Wither's dystopian world? Did it make sense to you? Do you think the world presented in this novel is a viable possibility for our future?"

No, no, no, no,no. None of it made sense. The virus MIGHT have made sense if there had been more of an explanation about why it was so age and gender specific but all we get is "something went wrong".

The destruction of the world made NO sense at all. To have all the continents reduced to minute islands is just not believable. What could be powerful enough to destroy something as imposing as the Himalayas and still leave North America intact? With most of the world's forests destroyed along with the continental land masses - what is producing oxygen? If there are no large land masses to absorb wind energy why aren't there more hurricanes in Florida where Rhine finds herself. I'm surprised that a category 3 was the highest they experienced. Those should have been a daily occurrence with a possibility of even stronger hurricanes - far above category 5.

The social and economic evolution doesn't make any sense either. Why do the Housemasters feel that they need to abduct young women to be brides for their sons? Vaughn 'buys' servants from the orphanages - why not brides? After all, he ends up with an orphan and a prostitute in addition to Rhine. Why was it necessary for the Gatherers to kill the women that weren't chosen? True, it makes Vaughn seem more of a monster if he gave this order but the Gatherers didn't have to follow the order - not to mention that there's no way to know if Vaughn knew that the rejected girls were murdered.

I feel that the world-building is the weakest part of the book. So much is just thrown in to support the main story line in an attempt to make it plausible that the whole thing becomes unbelievable.

Tatiana wrote: "It is unclear how some people can maintain quite and affluent, technologically advanced life style in such circumstances."

I'm going to jump in an say "me too". This was another aspect of this society that wasn't explained well at all. Rhine talks about her brother working in a factory in Manhattan but the details are so vague. It doesn't sound like the children in orphanages are being educated so, ultimately, everything, especially food and energy production, will eventually collapse.

Tina, I like your idea, that the world building would have worked better if the author simply said that the population on other continents was wiped our, rather than saying the continents were destroyed. Having the continents destroyed implies too much of a transformation, a transformation so huge (imagine the weapons it would have required, in addition to the climate changes) that the whole planet would die.

I feel that this book is the case where the author over-explained things too much. She should have written just the world where people die young for some unknown reason, and that's it, without adding things that she didn't think all the way through.

Virus? There's no virus to blame for the world of Wither. It was a genetic experiment to lengthen lives that went astray.

... can thank modern science for this genetic time bomb. A botched effort to create a perfect race has left all males with a lifespan of 25 years, and females with a lifespan of 20 years.

I am not very knowledgeable about viruses, but I remember reading a review that discussed in detail this virus/decease issue. Essentially, what it comes down to, a genetic disease and a virus are two completely different things that affect people differently, and it is a weakness of the novel that the author did not clarify it. I'll try to find that review and post a link to it.

Ok, here is an excerpt:

Finally, I don't think the science of the "virus" makes sense. Let's just ignore how arbitrary it is that boys die at 25 and girls at 20. The point is, these early deaths are caused by a virus, as Rhine keeps calling it, and there are a lot of people working to find a cure. However, the way this virus came into existence and the way it affects people seems more like a genetic flaw, a mutation to human DNA -- as Rhine explains it, scientists created an entire generation of "perfectly engineered embryos", and that generation grew up disease-resistant and "practically immortal", and everybody stopped having children that are "flawed naturally" in favor of this new technology. But the children of these genetically enhanced superbeings, and their children's children, etc., ended up with a freakishly shortened life span. As Rhine scientifically says, "something went wrong." [These are all quotations from the ARC.] That sounds like a genetic defect to me. And if it's a genetic defect, it would only affect those children of the genetically engineered embryos. Meaning that, all of the people with shortened life spans had to come from one of these genetically engineered embryos. Which means that everyone would have had to receive one of these embryos in the first place, because otherwise, people reproducing naturally would continue to have normal babies with normal health problems and life spans. Right? There would be people too poor for such treatment, and people against it for religious reasons, and people for whom such technology isn't feasible because of the poverty of their nations. These people would continue to reproduce naturally, and those normal babies should not be affected by what seems to me more of a genetic defect arising from the initial embryos (a mutation of the original genetic code), than an actual virus. So, how could everyone in the world have this defect?

and link to the review:

http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/...

I thought of another big issue that's not explained well in the book. At one point, Rhine says that everyone in the first generation were conceived and brought to term artificially. It's not clear whether the same process was used for the next generation - the first children who died and alerted the world (or the U.S.) at least that something had gone very wrong with their genetic manipulation.

Now, they're back to old-fashioned sexual reproduction. Two questions - have they reverted to sexual reproduction in the hope that this will solve the problem with the so-called virus? Did they revert to sexual reproduction in the second generation because they believed the genetic changes made in the first generation would breed true in succeeding generations?

It's just not clear - one more piece of confusion caused by a throw-away comment in the book. It really doesn't affect the story line but I can't help obsessing about it. If you're going to write a book that uses science fiction elements then you better make sure your back story (i.e. world-building) makes sense.

Tina wrote: "I think the destruction of every other continent was necessary for the story. It would definitely not be plausible for a whole Earth to have given into the creation of perfect children at once and if the whole population wasn´t affected by the problems connected with the genetic changes, the story wouldn´t work."

The more I think about, the more I'm convinced that it wasn't necessary to destroy the rest of the world - or even to kill off all the other people. All that's really needed is to sever communication and transportation with the other continents and that's plausible given that there was a disastrous war before the creation of generation 1. A few well-placed nuclear explosions in space would knock out all the telecommunication satellites - goodbye global communication, goodbye global internet links.

Air traffic would stop if the fossil fuel reserves were depleted. Sailing ships could still cross the ocean - so let's say the other nations prevent those ships from docking or destroy them so their crews can't return.

Actually, just the fact that there's a disastrous global war would be enough to destroy enough technology so that the continents are effectively isolated.

I find it very unlikely that the other continents are destroyed. I am willing to bet we will learn in the following books that it's just not true.

Hmmm.. finding all of this troubling. I'm only a few chapters in and was hoping many of these questions would be answered (but sounds like they're not). I would tend to think a world like this would skew toward anarchy or more rural desolation, like the Forest of Hands and Teeth series.

I think I might pass on book club this month. Thanks for sharing all the helpful comments! So many books to read, I want to make sure I'm spending time on stories I like :)

I feel like everyone here took the words right out of my mouth. When I saw the part about genetically engineered generations and then "virus" killing people at the same age, I knew something was off. Thanks to everyone who explained what was illogical about this world and thought about alternatives that made more sense.

Tatiana wrote: "I am willing to bet we will learn in the following books that it's just not true."

Unfortunately, that's too late for people who have lost interest in the series because of the illogical world-building and don't read the next book.

I agree with everybody. The world-building made no sense. I think the dystopian setting was meant to make the stakes higher and as an excuse to place Rhine in the polygamy situation.

Erin wrote: "I agree with everybody. The world-building made no sense. I think the dystopian setting was meant to make the stakes higher and as an excuse to place Rhine in the polygamy situation."

I wonder then why the author didn't write a book strictly about polygamy. It exists in this, real world, and plenty horrible things happen within polygamous relationship. Why dilute it with nonsensical dystopic world-building?

Because then the author would have to do research?

I liked this book a lot, but I didn't think the world building made any sense and neither did the virus, which is too bad. If the virus and world building had made sense, the novel would have been even better.

Rita wrote: "The disease and the world destruction, yeah, that might be possible. But I didn't think a world where most people are either very old or very young would function very well.

When the First Gene..."


I don't entirely agree with you here. Waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay back in the olden days (15-17 century) people DID die that young. Woman and girls WERE forced into arranged marraiges. They WERE raped. And those people did have society- they had ranks and nobles and servants and farmers, they did have a sustainable way of life, even if it is one that was unhealthy and twisted. They did have progress. They passed knowledge down through generations and started work at age 7 or even earlier. I think that they people in this society would have done much the same. The first generation wouldn't be stupid enough to let their species die out.

I think the worldbuilding of Wither could possibly be a future for us. We have always wanted a cure for cancer. This is one of the reasons i lked about Wither; it was realistic.

All the world being destroyed with north America being left is unbelievable. How the world just happens to be under water and nothing left is something I cannot fathom. Then everybody living to a certain age by a disease is just awkward. Them the men live longer than the woman. Before they have a chance to mature they have to have babies to help with finding a cute for their short life. I'm trying to take it all in.

I agree with the thought that maybe she was being vague in order to answer questions in a second book. I'm guessing this might just be one of those series where the first book just isn't the best (in comparison). But like somebody else has mentioned, a lot of people may have been completely turned off by that.

Reading these really makes me question why I liked it so much; I really liked the writing and the concept while not well detailed was plausible. As a sciency type person I would have LOVED more details on the hows and whys of the virus, but it is what it is.

I just can't believe I missed this whole thread when we were discussing the book. It fell to the bottom of the topics and then never bounced back to the top so I never looked at it!! ERRR!