The Cover of "Wither" (Book 2 Review2)

I am currently reading the book Wither by Lauren Destefano. The book is about a girl named Rhine who is taken and forced to be a bride to a wealthy young man along with 2 other girls. The reason is that all women are dying at the age of 20 and men at the age of 25 because of some biological defect. It’s a stretch right? I thought so too. The supposed reason is that this man wants to live out the rest of his life in happiness and ignorance (When in reality, his father wants the girls because he wants to test on them and their children for a cure). This is bleak. And for that reason, the cover is bleak as well.

It’s sort of a dark cover, showing a young teenage girl (Rhine) in a stunning dress but she is solemnly looking away. There is also a bird in a beautiful gilded cage, probably relating to how Rhine is trapped in a beautiful place but is trapped nonetheless-- just like the bird. It is mainly dark colors with some rich undertones of scarlet, plum, and copper that almost implore the audience to see that the book is dark (Everyone dies under the age of 25 for reasons unknown and scary father-in-laws want to experiment on kidnapped brides. That seems pretty dark to me.) But, the rich colors have a redeeming tone to them which, in turn, redeems the book so that it doesn’t seem all that bad.

I personally love the existing cover. It provides just enough insight that you can kind of tell the main gist of the book but it also has an air of mystery around it that entices readers to pick it up. If there were to be another cover, perhaps it could just be the picture of the bird cage. This would allude to the book’s premise.

If you are not careful, covers can break the book but in this case, it makes it.