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The cities are so polluted with chemicals, plants no longer grow.

Natural degradation exists in strong parallel with sexism in “Wither.” The mansion in which she lives is frequently deluged by Category 3 hurricanes - and drifts of snow. DeStefano’s writing is, like her heroine, intelligent and questioning as she delves into the thought processes of an imprisoned and devalued woman navigating a world that is coming undone. Throughout the action, there’s the ticking time bomb of a life with a set expiration date that makes Rhine’s situation all the more urgent. Written from Rhine’s perspective, “Wither” is taut and well-paced. Rhine, so far, has held him off by stringing him along, the better to indulge her flirtations with a young, attractive servant named Gabriel. After knocking up 13-year-old Cecily, his conjugal visits continue with 19-year-old Jenna.

Rhine, like her sister wives, is allowed outside only in the company of her husband, who’s been making the rounds of his wives’ bedrooms. But the mansion’s doors and windows are locked. She isn’t the first prisoner, er, wife, to attempt it. And I’d like to be far away from here before ever knowing what they are.” Rhine senses “there are ugly, dangerous things lurking beneath the beauty of this mansion. A virus claims men at age 25 and women when they’re 20, usually in a fit of bloody coughs and fever. An unintended consequence of those First Generation test-tube babies is the short lives of their offspring. Seventy years earlier, natural conception was shunned in favor of perfectly engineered embryos.

In this kickoff to her Chemical Garden Trilogy, 16-year-old Rhine Ellery has just been taken by a Gatherer who kidnaps girls once they’re able to bear children - murdering those who are undesirable, selling others into prostitution and marrying off the rest to make babies and perpetuate the human race. So it’s been with Suzanne Collins’ “The Hunger Games,” Ally Condie’s “Matched” and now “Wither,” the first book in a wonderfully creepy new series from debut novelist Lauren DeStefano. Their missions: overthrowing corrupt, entrenched patriarchies. Set in environmentally degraded or post-apocalyptic Americas, their young heroines are feisty. The strong dystopian themes in today’s young-adult books are frequently infused with feminism.