Book Review, Bording on Public Service Announcement: Chemical Garden Series
I've kind of been looking forward to writing this review. Because this series was SO bad, that it's fun to write the reviews.
This was a random-off-the-library-shelf. Like I've said, this can go very badly, or very wonderfully. Unfortunately, this was of the very badly variety.
The first book, Wither, wasn't the worst book I've ever read, but I wasn't greatly impressed either. It was dystopia that missed the point of dystopia, the science of it wasn't really that well considered, and there were a lot of things about the world-building that just didn't make sense. Add a heroine that I just couldn't like, and a sloppy, overly-dramatic, I-think-I'm-James-Joyce-but-I'm-not writing style, and it wasn't a winner. But, I'm a completist, so I read the next one, Fever.
It was even worse. The story went from making little sense to making almost no sense, and made me care about no characters at all. The couple had no chemistry whatsoever, and there were random characters who I think were supposed to be metaphors, but I don't think even the author really knows of what they were supposed to be metaphors. The story was badly thought-out, and there seemed to be no research to the story whatsoever. It was a flat-out insult to medical science. As I wrote in my goodreads review:
"A list of things that this author doesn't understand:
1) genetics
2) viruses
3) geography
4) catastrophic geology
5) metaphor
6) the use of language in a poetic manner
7) physiology
8) politics
9) political science
10) psychology
11) colors
This book was, quite frankly, laughable. The only thing that she portrayed well was Gabriel's drug withdrawal--she probably has experience with it, because nothing else could explain the LSD-influenced descriptions throughout. And I'm not only talking about the hallucination descriptions. I'm talking about the descriptions when they're supposedly NOT under the influence. "
Well, I figured the third book, Sever, couldn't possibly be worse. I was wrong. It can, and it was. It flat-out made NO sense. Movies can be so bad, they're good, but it's hard for books to do. This one almost did it.
The author seriously resolved a love-triangle (which was a dumb love-triangle to start with) by having one of the males accidentally hit his head on window, have a seizure and die. Not through a window. Just into. The denouement made no sense, and this cure for this virus/mutation (she describes it as both, and I don't think she knows they're different) is the lamest thing ever. The villainization is ridiculous, but the acceptance of the villain is even more ridiculous, and the ending is one that seriously made me think, "did someone spike my water or something? Am I drunk?"
The main character, Rhine, spends the first half of the book talking about how she has to find her brother, Rowan, and stop him from being a terrorist, because, of course, he's only being a terrorist because he thinks she's dead. Because that's totally what rational, logical people do when their sisters die--they bomb hospitals. But, instead of actually moving towards this goal, she sits around for half a book (literally, half a book), cleaning crud out of an old guy's shed. And why is she saying she has to stop her brother from doing the unthinkable, when he already bombed a hospital? That's pretty unthinkable.
Terribly written, and a plot that makes about as much sense as nailing jello to a tree, with characters who literally go from hysterics at being near a person to saying, "Yeah, we've been thinking that we've been pretty silly at running away. Let's go home to said person," and sentences that make no grammatical sense if you turn the fancy words into less fancy synonyms. I swear this lady has a list of pretty words that she will use, gosh darn it, whether they make sense in context or not. I actually appreciate using words that don't technically fit, and yet, they kind of do. I find it gorgeous. But that's not what this was. It was just, "I've always wanted to use this word." I swear she played mad libs with this book sometimes.
I was telling my coworkers about this ridiculous book, and interestingly enough, one of my opposites ended up reading the book, and she was telling my coworkers about it, and they said, "Wait...this is the book that Hannah was telling us about. Don't keep reading. It gets worse."
One star. Because half-stars are a physical impossibility. And if one more character's eyes change color with emotions, or she describes blood as copper-colored one more time, I move that Lauren DeStefano be banned from writing anything else for the rest of her life. Emails and facebook posts included.
Note: I analyze blood for a living, and I have seen some odd-colored blood, but never, not even once, copper-colored blood.
This was a random-off-the-library-shelf. Like I've said, this can go very badly, or very wonderfully. Unfortunately, this was of the very badly variety.
The first book, Wither, wasn't the worst book I've ever read, but I wasn't greatly impressed either. It was dystopia that missed the point of dystopia, the science of it wasn't really that well considered, and there were a lot of things about the world-building that just didn't make sense. Add a heroine that I just couldn't like, and a sloppy, overly-dramatic, I-think-I'm-James-Joyce-but-I'm-not writing style, and it wasn't a winner. But, I'm a completist, so I read the next one, Fever.
It was even worse. The story went from making little sense to making almost no sense, and made me care about no characters at all. The couple had no chemistry whatsoever, and there were random characters who I think were supposed to be metaphors, but I don't think even the author really knows of what they were supposed to be metaphors. The story was badly thought-out, and there seemed to be no research to the story whatsoever. It was a flat-out insult to medical science. As I wrote in my goodreads review:
"A list of things that this author doesn't understand:
1) genetics
2) viruses
3) geography
4) catastrophic geology
5) metaphor
6) the use of language in a poetic manner
7) physiology
8) politics
9) political science
10) psychology
11) colors
This book was, quite frankly, laughable. The only thing that she portrayed well was Gabriel's drug withdrawal--she probably has experience with it, because nothing else could explain the LSD-influenced descriptions throughout. And I'm not only talking about the hallucination descriptions. I'm talking about the descriptions when they're supposedly NOT under the influence. "
Well, I figured the third book, Sever, couldn't possibly be worse. I was wrong. It can, and it was. It flat-out made NO sense. Movies can be so bad, they're good, but it's hard for books to do. This one almost did it.
The author seriously resolved a love-triangle (which was a dumb love-triangle to start with) by having one of the males accidentally hit his head on window, have a seizure and die. Not through a window. Just into. The denouement made no sense, and this cure for this virus/mutation (she describes it as both, and I don't think she knows they're different) is the lamest thing ever. The villainization is ridiculous, but the acceptance of the villain is even more ridiculous, and the ending is one that seriously made me think, "did someone spike my water or something? Am I drunk?"
The main character, Rhine, spends the first half of the book talking about how she has to find her brother, Rowan, and stop him from being a terrorist, because, of course, he's only being a terrorist because he thinks she's dead. Because that's totally what rational, logical people do when their sisters die--they bomb hospitals. But, instead of actually moving towards this goal, she sits around for half a book (literally, half a book), cleaning crud out of an old guy's shed. And why is she saying she has to stop her brother from doing the unthinkable, when he already bombed a hospital? That's pretty unthinkable.
Terribly written, and a plot that makes about as much sense as nailing jello to a tree, with characters who literally go from hysterics at being near a person to saying, "Yeah, we've been thinking that we've been pretty silly at running away. Let's go home to said person," and sentences that make no grammatical sense if you turn the fancy words into less fancy synonyms. I swear this lady has a list of pretty words that she will use, gosh darn it, whether they make sense in context or not. I actually appreciate using words that don't technically fit, and yet, they kind of do. I find it gorgeous. But that's not what this was. It was just, "I've always wanted to use this word." I swear she played mad libs with this book sometimes.
I was telling my coworkers about this ridiculous book, and interestingly enough, one of my opposites ended up reading the book, and she was telling my coworkers about it, and they said, "Wait...this is the book that Hannah was telling us about. Don't keep reading. It gets worse."
One star. Because half-stars are a physical impossibility. And if one more character's eyes change color with emotions, or she describes blood as copper-colored one more time, I move that Lauren DeStefano be banned from writing anything else for the rest of her life. Emails and facebook posts included.
Note: I analyze blood for a living, and I have seen some odd-colored blood, but never, not even once, copper-colored blood.
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