This was a difficult book to rate, so I'm going to break it up into "pros" and "cons""pros" - Awesome cover! Totally captured the pages within. The story follows the misfortune of 3 girls, Rhine, Jenna and Cecily who are kidnapped by "gatherers" to become the sister wives of a wealthy man named Linden. This is a common practice in our future world based on the fact that the human race is endanged. More babies are needed because the new generations lifespan is 20 years for females and 25 years for males. It kind of reminded me of "A Handmaid's Tale" meets "Flowers in the Attic". I loved each of the characters, the book was beautifully written and kept me reading until the very last page. "cons" - Much of the dystopic future just does not make sense. My largest question being, if the average lifespan is now 20-25 years why on earth would you want to have children only for them to become orphans at a very young age?? We hear early on in the book what a pain and inconvience these orphans are. Begging for food, stealing. Why knowingly produce more? Secondly, considering the entire point of the marriages is to procreate, why does Linden not demand consumation of his marriage to Rhine?? And seriously.....Linden is the most oblivious person in the world. Strange how he doesn't really know what goes on in the basement of his own home....or how these sister wives came into his possession....takes every word his father says at face value...ugh...Overall though, I just plained loved the book. Even with the faults. Hoping the sequel gets ironed out a bit but I'm really looking forward to it!!!
 - Lauren DeStefano)
