Review: Mostly Chapters from Wither, Not All New Material
Rating: 3 out of 5
Date: 04 8, 2012
The new thing these days with these young adult trilogies is to release small stories in between novels as "teaser" for the newest book in the series. OK, I am fine with that, but the short story has to do something for me. I buy them because I love the trilogy, but when I get to the story and find out it is actually 86% (according to my Kindle) filled with chapters from the first book (and you wouldn't be reading this short story had you NOT already read the first book), and another ~10% previews for the next book, you find yourself wondering, "Why did I buy this 7 paged snippet?"Once you wade through the chapters from Lauren DeStefano's Wither (which you undoubtedly already read), you get to the short story First Bride, which is the reason you purchased this eBook in the first place. The story is from Rose's point of view, the first wife who was dying and Rhine and the others were a replacement for. The chapter, because for me 7 Kindle pages does not constitute any kind of short story to speak of, was certainly interesting, but it should have been incorporated as a brief introductory chapter to Wither. Its only saving grace was getting to view Linden in this light, who was always a character you struggled to like or dislike. Seeing him with Rose, the girl he truly loved, you get to see the magnitude of his grief and the devastation this virus has caused.But still, I just can't justify this being sold separately from the original novel Wither and the new novel, Fever. I suppose if you are a Wither fan like myself, you will still buy it since you want to know everything you can about Wither. Of course, you will most likely be a little disappointed like I was. The story was interesting, but not worth the money or the effort of slogging through 50 pages of the first book... But I imagine, if you are anything like me, you are still dying to read Fever regardless of the disappointment of Seeds of Wither.