Wither is the story of Rhine, a 16 year old girl in a future where children born die at 20 & 25 (gender based). Kidnapped and forced into a polygamous marriage, Rhine thinks of nothing but finding a way to be free and return to her old life. 
 Wither has an interesting concept - that genetic advances have now caused a virus that kills young. The effects that it has on the society are really interesting, but sadly, not explored enough in the book I find. I understand we're seeing the world through the eyes of Rhine, who is currently a captive, but instead of staring at trees for half the book we could perhaps get more backstory? Despite some repetitiveness, the novel is written in a quite beautiful prose; DeStefano's descriptions are a huge redeeming factor. 
 I'm not sure why I didn't enjoy this book more; the characters were well developed (which is my usual big deciding factor). I think it was the romance that threw me off. I feel like a girl who has been kidnapped, brought across the country, unwillingly married, and then held captive (even if the prison is a nice one it's still a prison) isn't going to be falling in love anytime soon. And then despite all the horrid things happening, we don't get a true villian, we get one boy whose too blissfully stupid and his father who isn't explored as much as he could've been. 
 Then there's a lot of large plot holes in the book, world building factors that just don't make sense: every continent aside from America (north and south I'm assuming?) has been destroyed, the specificity of a virus that no one knows anything about, the idea that if young wombs are in such demand yet so many girls are killed related to this one (one! of many possible) marriage. 
 While it was written beautifully, I don't think that this is the genre perhaps for Destefano.