With the clock ticking until the virus takes its toll, Rhine is desperate for answers. After enduring Vaughn’s worst, Rhine finds an unlikely ally in his brother, an eccentric inventor named Reed. She takes refuge in his dilapidated house, though the people she left behind refuse to stay in the past. While Gabriel haunts Rhine’s memories, Cecily is determined to be at Rhine’s side, even if Linden’s feelings are still caught between them.
Meanwhile, Rowan’s growing involvement in an underground resistance compels Rhine to reach him before he does something that cannot be undone. But what she discovers along the way has alarming implications for her future—and about the past her parents never had the chance to explain.
In this breathtaking conclusion to Lauren DeStefano’s Chemical Garden trilogy, everything Rhine knows to be true will be irrevocably shattered.
The end of Fever prevented me the luxury of relaxing between reading it and this sequel. It's not too often that I read a series where the next book is available right away, so I took this opportunity and was soon back into Rhine's world, quickly reaching the conclusion to this trilogy.
I have a lot of mixed feelings about this installment in the series. I feel like a majority of the front matter in this book was waiting around. Either they were waiting for Rhine to be released from the hospital, or Rhine was waiting for a good time to leave Reed's place, they're waiting for the opportunity to escape Vaughn, etc.
However when we weren't waiting for something to happen, SO MUCH was happening, and there was either a lot of action going on or there was a lot of information being fed to Rhine and the reader. So much information, in fact, that I think Rhine was kept a little too in-the-dark in the first two books, because the entire second half of the book is like an information overload. There's intel about Rhine's genetics, and her brother Rowen's actions in the last year, and Vaughn's true intentions with the twins (the sister wives, and Linden, and the maids, and pretty much anyone he could get his hands on). There was a shocking reveal 250 pages in that doesn't really get explained very well by the end of the book, and then there's suddenly a hostage situation. It was a lot to process very quickly.
Things That I Liked:
I really liked Reed and his eccentricities. He was a really interesting character, and I'm almost sad that we only got to know him in this final installment.
I liked the added layer of this world/disease that was brought about with Hawaii and all that entails.
I was confused but delighted by Rhine's and Linden's obvious lingering feelings for each other, and I definitely felt Linden's heartache and hesitation to trust his former-favorite wife.
I liked that Cecily finally decided to grow up.
THE ROSE REVEAL. So shocking. So good.
Things That I Didn't Like:
I was confused about the Hawaii-addition and if it was explained how that whole "situation" was possible, I think I missed it.
I wish there was more Gabriel. Or at least more worry for Gabriel.
I wanted Rowen's actions/thought process about his attacks/bombings/trusting-of-certain-people to be explained better. Again, if that did happen, I missed it.
MORE MADAME (and Jared). Wanted it. Didn't get it.
Overall Impression:
I was once again captivated by DeStefano's prose, and while I still believe that Fever is the better book in the trilogy, Sever does have a lot going on and a lot to love as a final book in a series.
I was a little "eh" about the ending, it seemed to come about a little too easily for me, then again I don't know how else I would have preferred it to go. Almost all of my questions were answered, and reading other reviews tells me that most everyone else who read the series had all of their questions answered to their satisfaction.
Overall for the series, this story presents a new and interesting concept, and it provided a really fascinating and complex social situation to work a story around.
I will be waiting excitedly to get my hands on DeStefano's Internment Chronicles: Perfect Ruin book in October. For more information on that, please visit the book's GoodReads page.
Blonde's Rating: 3.5/5
Amazon's Rating: 4.3/5
GoodReads Rating: 3.9/5
Thanks!
The Blonde
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