I have a complicated relationship with Lauren DeStefano’s Chemical Garden trilogy, which so far includes Wither and Fever. I wasn’t hugely impressed with Wither, but it wasn’t really because I thought it was poorly written or dull. I guess you could say my problems were more ideological, but I’m not sure that’s totally accurate either.
Regardless, I liked it enough to read the sequel, Fever, which I finished a few days ago. I had a lot of the same problems with it as I did with Wither, and rather than write a review which would mostly just be a re-hash of the one I did for Wither, I wanted to talk about the series of books in broader terms. More specifically, I want to discuss how sex and rape are portrayed in the books, and how problematic I find those portrayals. (There will be some spoilers for Wither, but not any for Fever that you wouldn’t discover by reading the jacket copy.)
I’ve been thinking about this a lot more since reading this opinion piece by Drew McWeeny, which discusses how problematic depictions of rape in movies have become for him. His thesis is that so much of rape in movies lately serves no purpose other than to shock or titillate, and neither of those purposes are artistic or justify the rape’s inclusion. In short, it’s exploitative in the worst way.
In a related way, there’s something about the Chemical Garden books that seems exploitative. It’s different from the movies that McWeeny references, since the readers of the Chemical Garden books are probably more likely to be female than male (so presumably the titillation aspect isn’t as prominent), but I can’t stop seeing parallels. I do have major problems with media that throw in a rape to shock or simply as an easy way to say “Look how shitty this person/situation is!” It’s bothered me more and more as I got older, and now I screen everything I read or view so that even if I choose not to avoid the book or movie, I at least know what I’m getting into and am prepared for it.
In the Chemical Garden books, I don’t feel that the rampant sexual violence has much purpose beyond demonstrating that Rhine lives in a terrible world. And that’s not enough for me. Just because it’s not explicitly described doesn’t mean it needn’t have some real purpose for being there. In Fever, Rhine and Gabriel escape Vaughn’s estate only to run into another nightmare: a brothel set in a decaying carnival/circus site. This section of the book (about 100 pages) introduces a character who sticks around for a while, and it builds Rhine’s world a bit further, but I don’t think either of those reasons really justified the inclusion of the brothel. I didn’t see it do much for Rhine or Gabriel’s character development and I didn’t see it do much to further the plot. The new character didn’t seem to have much point, and I already knew Rhine’s world was shitty since I had read Wither. I knew her world was filled with just this sort of violence and sexual abuse. I didn’t need this chunk of the book to reinforce that knowledge. It seemed extraneous and left a bad taste in my mouth. It felt exploitative.
Obviously, my feelings and thoughts about these books hinge very strongly on how much and what kind of meaning I require in my books. Perhaps it is unfair, but I require more meaning in my dystopias than in other books I read. By “meaning,” I do mean it in a pretty traditional sense: I want the books to say something about our world, whether that something is social, political, familial, or anything else.
This series of books has often been compared to The Handmaid’s Tale and Julia Karr’s XVI, both of which have copious amounts of rape and both of which I found to be valuable reading experiences. So why the difference in my opinion between the Chemical Garden books and these two? The meaning in each resonated with me. The Handmaid’s Tale had so much to say about religion and faith and the power of story. XVI wasn’t as smoothly done, but it had plenty to say about the power of media to make us believe impossible things. Both books have a lot to say about the problems with power and unflinching obedience. I suppose the Chemical Garden books have something to say about what desperate people do in desperate times, but McWeeny addresses that in his piece. It’s not enough for him, and it’s not enough for me, either.
Clearly, my problems with the books aren’t enough to stop me from reading them. DeStefano has made me care about Rhine. I want to know that she’ll be OK. I want to know if she’ll live past her 20th birthday. I want to read the third book and witness a world that begins to heal. Hence my complicated relationship. I’ll probably read the final book, but I predict it will be punctuated by these moments of frustration and distaste, just as my readings of Wither and Fever were.
I don’t intend this post to be a slam of the books. Many people whose opinions I respect enjoy them quite a bit and presumably derive a great deal of meaning from them. I only intend to describe my frustration with them and perhaps open up a dialogue with others about these aspects of the books. If you’ve read them, did you experience the same frustration?
I feel the same. If it is only there to shock the audience, I don't really want to see it. I like my stories to have a moral. Wither was a sad book, and I was hesitant to read the second book because I was afraid it was going to go the way of "sexual abuse". Thanks for confirming this.
Personally, I don't need all (or even most) of my stories to have a moral, but I need some sort of meaning in my dystopias. I think there's a difference between moral and meaning, too. "Moral" seems to indicate a certain tone, something more cut and dry, whereas meaning, to me, leaves more room for interpretation.
I have only read Wither (I read it because I loved The Handmaid's Tale and was duped by the comparisons), but I had one of the more negatively visceral reactions to that book I've had in a long time.
Not only was I bothered by the sexual violence in Wither (especially when the very young, 13 or so, girl is raped in the novel), but I was really, really disturbed by how the main character is some sort of special snowflake who largely avoids the ramifications of the violent world in which she lives. Not that I wanted something terrible to happen to her, but I was livid that for some reason she was just too special/unique/whatever to experience the horrors that all the other teen girls in the compound are experiencing. It was just inexplicable to me.
I felt like DeStefano created this horrific world full of sexual violence and yet the main character was isolated from those horrors on some level, because she was so special. This would have been a much braver book if Rhine had been force to confront more intense immediate danger. And, I was very bothered by the sympathetic light in which the young guy to whom all the young girls are delivered is painted.
I know I'm not being very articulate in expressing what bothered me about the sexual violence in that book (and I haven't read Fever, so perhaps things change), but every element of it sat wrong with me.
For what it's worth, I very much like the XVI series for the way it confronts the power of media messages. It's not a perfect series, but I think it brings up some important issues.
Sarah, I think you've hit the nail on the head with this comment. I think keeping Rhine from experiencing the horrible things that her sister wives experience is a cop-out, and it continues in Fever (it's not really a spoiler that Rhine is not made to prostitute herself when she's captured by the brothel).
And I, too, disliked the soft way Linden was regarded.
Wither was a DNF for me, partially because the virus made no sense and partially because the worldbuilding made no sense to me. I felt like at least some people would be interested in education (let's find a cure!) and uninterested in bringing children into a violent world where they would die young. Yet the entire society seemed to function around sex. There were other issues with it to . . . but it seemed to me as if DeStefano created RapeWorld without any thought as to how such an event would actually change the world.
Yep – it seems like the author created the world first and then tried to make an explanation for it afterward.
Of course I can't speak to the author's true motivations or thought processes, but that's the way it appears to me.
I feel much the way you do about this series. I liked Wither, but it wasn't a strong like. Basically, I put it down and it was okay, and the cover was pretty, and I wanted to read the next one. However, Fever made me throw my hands up in the air, because nothing happened, and I really sat back and looked at the first one in context and I'm pretty much just disappointed now.
It's really hard for me to talk about this series without feeling like an asshole. Let me just put that out there. Obviously, I don't think anyone should get raped ever. I just need that said. Rape is wrong, and I in no way endorse it.
My issue with these books so far, though, is that, in this world as DeStefano has presented it, there is no way that Rhine would have ended the second book still a virgin. I was able to suspend disbelief in Wither; maybe Linden really liked her and wouldn't have pressed the issue. Even then, I was skeptical. He got these wives SPECIFICALLY for impregnation purposes, so why would he not get busy? DeStefano tried to explain that he liked her too much to force her, but his real love was the sick one, so I don't think it would have stopped him if this were real. Eh. But still, whatever, I'll accept it.
In Fever, though, what the heck was that? First place she and Gabriel go is a freaking bawdy house where, of course, she gets work as a prostitute. Yet, I'm supposed to believe that the madame will let her get by without having sex with any clients. Instead, Rhine will be used to cater to voyeurs. She will only have to be touched by her boyfriend. At this point, my skepticism is pretty much off the charts. Every story I've encountered about prostitution tells me that terrible men will pay a LOT of money to take a girl's virginity. There's no way the madame would have passed that up. She could always use Rhine for voyeurs later.
Even worse, I'm supposed to believe that all those voyeurs paying money to see Rhine only watch her and Gabriel freaking fool around a little? No. Not buying it. Not at all.
The point to this whole rant is to say that I think the weakness of these books lies largely in DeStefano's inability to do truly awful things to her characters. She put Rhine in a world and in situations where rape is inevitable, but she doesn't want Rhine to BE raped. It makes everything feel completely unbelievable.
Does that make sense? I don't want Rhine to be raped, but I feel like to do the story line correctly, and to make these books as dark and horrifying as they should be, she would have to be. I haven't read XVI, but I know that the heroine of The Handmaid's Tale has been forced to have sex with Fred. If you're going to write a dystopia, you need to follow through.
Christina, I completely agree with you. I touched on this VERY slightly in my review of Grave Mercy. http://www.stackedbooks.org/2012/04/grave-mercy-by-robin-lafevers.html
Oh, wow. I didn't realize that's how the events of Fever unfolded. That's pretty disturbing on a number of levels, from the working as a prostitute without prostituting to the voyeur thing… One of my deal-breakers in YA is the insistence on YA characters remaining virginal when it doesn't make sense in the work or situations the characters find themselves in. That sounds bad, and I don't know a better way to say it, but when the virginity is preserved over creating a logical storyline and world that sends a message that really bothers me.
I hope you didn't get any surprise spoilers! I'm guessing, though, from your comments above that you probably didn't want to go further.
I definitely agree. Lots of young adults ARE having sex, so it's kind of crazy how few of the books really address that, although I think we're seeing it more. And, right now, in a lot of the ones where it happens it's to an absurd degree like House of Night. I really love books like Kristin Cashore's where the heroines can have sex, maybe even with more than one guy (SHOCK) and do it responsibly without any shame. That is a healthy attitude.
Fever just did not make sense. I saw one review where they said they liked that she wasn't whiny in it and I wondered which book they read. I thought she was WAY less powerful in this one, especially since she was drugged up for half the book.
No worries about spoilers! I wasn't planning on reading Fever. For me, I really want to the characters to have a reason behind their decision, re: whether or not they have sex. The implied importance of preserving virginity without any thought or understanding behind the character's motivation to do so really bothers me, especially considering this is such a big issue (one way or the other) for many teens.
I definitely agree. There's no reasoning behind much of anything that happens in this series.
The other thing that having her remain all 'pure and innocent' does is that it makes the danger not seem all that real. I mean, we see the sister wives not all that happy and the girls murdered at the beginning. Still, I can't think of any absolutely horrifying and atrocious things that happen. Bad things happen, but nothing seriously freaked me out, which definitely should be the case when it's a dystopia about women having no fucking say in what happens to their bodies.
There's a reason Joss Whedon kills characters in his shows/movies: because it makes everything feel real. It proves that lives really are on the line. He shows rather than tells.
To me dystopian novels are supposed to comment on something. They're supposed to be pointing out a flaw/problem in our society. The Handmaid's Tale does so, other YA novels like The Hunger Games, Uglies and Delirium do it. I know it's not an official requirement of the genre, but in my opinion that's sort of the purpose of the genre. So when I read things like Wither I'm always left wanting something more.
Anyway what I'm trying to say is that I agree with all your points about Wither/Fever. I really think there should have been a message – especially with all the serious issues that are in the story just waiting to be touched upon
I've been thinking about rape in YA fiction since I read Froi of the Exiles, which sort of takes the opposite approach to the Chemical Garden trilogy in that almost no one escapes sexual violence. This post and the comments were both really helpful to me, in terms of giving me some criteria for judging how well authors address rape culture. I totally agree that making an exception for your main character is kind of like saying only certain women get raped, which just perpetuates a blame-the-victim mentality.
I'm….a little shocked. Did you miss the huge honking levels of slut-shaming and woman-hating in XVI? I mean, don't get me wrong: this article is great and I was nodding my head like a Churchill dog for most of the way through it. But then you commend XVI? Really? XVI blamed the victim so gratuitously (Sandy was raped and murdered, and it's basically reasoned that because she wore revealing clothing it was bound to happen) that I'm really surprised you're in favor of it.
I take your point, but that aspect of XVI seemed like a believable aspect of the culture/society Karr created, whereas in these books it doesn't seem that way.
And I guess I should clarify that it didn't seem like the author was condoning those thoughts in XVI – just that people felt that way, as a byproduct of this culture that exists.
I just now finished reading FEVER and I agree that it was a whole lot of WTF for the most part. Beautifully written WTF but WTF nonetheless.
Your point about these rape devices used in YA literature not being titillating because they are not aimed at boys and men is something I take minor issue with. I believe there IS a titillation aspect to rape in YA, but it is either the rescue (there's a rape rescue in FEVER), the recovery (wherein the "nice" boy doesn't stop or prevent the rape but helps the victim recover and love again) or rarely the revenge (usually with the help of other girls). I have gotten so tired of this in books that I have taken to referring to them as RRFs (Rape Rescue Fantasies). They are a big feature in romantic movies too, and in TV.
This is a different way of trivializing rape, but maybe equally problematic.
Good points, I hadn't considered that.