"Waiting on..." Wednesday: Wither

"Waiting on Wednesday" is a weekly post hosted by Jill at Breaking the Spine.

This week, the pre-publication book that I'm getting excited and anxious to read is...

Wither

(Chemical Garden Trilogy, #1)

By Lauren DeStephano

Publication Date: 22 March 2011

From Simon & Schuster:

By age sixteen, Rhine Ellery has four years left to live. She can thank modern science for this genetic time bomb. A botched effort to create a perfect race has left all males with a lifespan of 25 years, and females with a lifespan of 20 years. Geneticists are seeking a miracle antidote to restore the human race, desperate orphans crowd the population, crime and poverty have skyrocketed, and young girls are being kidnapped and sold as polygamous brides to bear more children.

When Rhine is kidnapped and sold as a bride, she vows to do all she can to escape. Her husband, Linden, is hopelessly in love with her, and Rhine can't bring herself to hate him as much as she'd like to. He opens her to a magical world of wealth and illusion she never thought existed, and it almost makes it possible to ignore the clock ticking away her short life. But Rhine quickly learns that not everything in her new husband's strange world is what it seems. Her father-in-law, an eccentric doctor bent on finding the antidote, is hoarding corpses in the basement. Her fellow sister wives are to be trusted one day and feared the next, and Rhine is desperate to communicate to her twin brother that she is safe and alive. Will Rhine be able to escape--before her time runs out?

How can you see this absolutely beautiful cover and NOT want to pick up this book?!  Not to mention a compelling story that fits well within my current adoration of well-written dystopian novels.  I have a coworker who managed to snag an ARC and LOVED this.  She said is is fabulously written.

Here's the hitch: I decided to give up reading for Lent.  Obviously not ALL reading--I am in school after all and giving up church-related reading would seem to defeat the purpose a tad.  I'll be giving up my nightly YA reading in favor of more time spent with my husband (or my homework...semester is getting tough).  Soooo....while this book comes out in mere weeks, I won't be able to read it until the END OF APRIL. Sad, right?