There may be nothing else to recommend about this book, but it does have presentation mastered.

So, before we begin Sever, let’s take a moment to look at some words people not only say about this series, but words they were willing to attach their names to.

Praise for THE CHEMICAL GARDEN TRILOGY
“[A] harrowing debut. . . . DeStefano has an observant and occasionally pitiless eye, chronicling the cruelties, mercies, and inconsistencies of her young characters.”
—Publishers Weekly, starred review, on Wither
“Creepy and elegant, shocking and romantic, dreadful and rewarding, and delivers unexpected twists.”
—Lisa McMann, New York Times bestselling author of the Wake trilogy and Cryer’s Cross, on Wither
“This beautifully written debut fantasy, with its intriguing world-building, well-developed characters, and intricate plot involving flashbacks as well as edge-of-the-seat suspense, will keep teens riveted.”
—VOYA, on Wither
“Lauren DeStefano crafts an all-too-believable future. I loved the world, the romance, the writing—exactly the kind of book I’ve been craving to read.”
—Carrie Ryan, New York Times bestselling author of The Forest of Hands and Teeth, on Wither
“Rhine’s struggles and pain are real, and her story is both heartbreaking and hopeful. I couldn’t read this book fast enough.”
—Beth Revis, New York Times bestselling author of Across the Universe, on Fever
“DeStefano’s rich use of language helps set this dystopian tale apart.”
—Booklist, on Fever

When last we left Rhine in Fever, she had just finished up being tortured by Evil Mad Scientist when he could spare a moment from raping preteens to death. Linden-chan, his child-raping son, had discovered his beloved dolly had been hidden by his dad and rescues her to another hospital where he treats her like shit for not loving him and trying to escape and she explains that she’s the real monster here. Rhine, while able to write off the other preteen girls as damaged goods no one should care about, begs him to protect his other child bride from his father, and upon convincing him it’s a problem, he explains that he loves Cecily but not enough to bother doing that because it’s a different sort of love.

We’re also told it was really all Cecily’s fault, again. Fourteen year old rape victims: the real enemy.

Also, her brother is now a terrorist.

Now you’re all caught up.

Sever opens with Rhine rambling about her namesake river in the destroyed world which people kept hinting might not be destroyed so we’ll find out! She then tells us she’s supposed to be looking at it to plan her way to where her brother just bombed a hospital for its pro-science research on embryos. Fun fact – that was apparently the only place in the country doing their research on embryos rather than infants and starving orphens. Rowan looked long and hard for the one place that least deserved murdering. It’s a shame Evil Mad Scientist got in on the child rape or Rowan would’ve probably found Rhine while on his way to blow up the only place to be doing their research on people who died naturally.

Linden shifts his weight restlessly. “I didn’t even know you had a brother,” he’d said when I told him where I was going. “But the list of things I don’t know about you is growing longer every day, isn’t it?”
He’s bitter. About our marriage and the way it ended.

Poor, poor baby. Just because he kidnapped her and didn’t give the slightest fucks about her life, she kept secrets from him about her life! Truly Rapist-chan is the real victim. Especially because he still wubs her and she’s used that to get Cecily to stay with her, which is necessary because My once-husband still doesn’t quite believe she was in danger in his father’s, Vaughn’s, home. Or maybe he does believe it; I’m not sure, because he’s barely speaking to me these days or, in fewer words, it’s still all about Rapist-chan and his feelings. Forever.

Rhine says it’s actually pretty great getting her private room and attentive doctors while most people are turned away at the door or have to live in the lobbies because hospitals are so overcrowded. That’s the sum total of her feelings on the matter, not that her special treatment is just making things even worse for those people.

She then claims her stay is because there’s not enough blood for the transfusions she’d need to heal faster, because we all know that when the majority of the population is so poor their primary income is letting scientists experiment on them while the 1% lives in luxury and can buy and sell entire people, obviously no one would just buy blood. Or tap the orphans while waiting for them to grow old enough to sell, or drain it out of the girls they’re going to kill anyway.

And now that my blood has regenerated, they want to take it a bit at a time and analyze it to be sure I’m recovering. They’re under the assumption that my body didn’t respond to Vaughn’s attempts to treat the virus; I’m not sure what exactly he told them, but he has a way of being everywhere without being present.

Rhine’s own explanation being ignored, as is the fact she’s too young to have the virus. But somehow she doesn’t us e her immense evil vagina control over poor Rapist-chan to prevent this.

Supposedly she has some special blood type that’s impossible to match anyway, meaning there isn’t even a point to their absurd claim the hospital can’t afford to pay enough for blood to get a decent supply, even though O doesn’t trigger an immune response regardless.

I find my way back to North America—the only continent that’s left, and even it isn’t whole; there are uninhabitable pieces of what used to be known as Canada and Mexico.

That’s one very specific vague series of disasters. And if the world isn’t destroyed, that presumably means Mexico and Canada built walls to keep us away, which seems plausible because wouldn’t you? The real reason for the official story of the world being destroyed is because the government knows anyone leaving will be treated as an act of war by the rest of the world.

Cecily uses her own evil vagina control on poor Rapist-chan to try to get his attention by saying she’s hungry, and she wants brownies and he agrees and leaves because she pouts cute.

“Linden is furious with me,” she says, not without remorse, but also not in her usual weepy way. “He says you could have been killed.”
I spent months in Vaughn’s basement laboratory, the subject of countless experiments, while Linden obliviously milled about upstairs. Cecily, who visited me and talked of helping me escape, never told him about any of it. It isn’t the first time she betrayed me

Supposedly, she did this because Rapist-chan was so broken up about Rhine’s evil abandonment and he seemed to be getting over it and she though she should just help Rhine escape since that’s what Rhine wanted anyway.

I’m just going to refuse to acknowledge this subplot further.

Rhine says that Cecily isn’t as teary as usual because she’s grown up from all the trauma. She’s fourteen. Rhine then tells her not to trust Evil Mad Scientist, and Cecily points out that it doesn’t matter, she has no way out.

Rapist-chan is back.

She settles in a chair and props her swollen feet up on the window ledge. She has a way of ignoring Linden’s hints about wanting to be alone with me. It was a minor annoyance in our marriage, but right now it’s a relief.

That was back when she was thirteen and locked up with only Rhine, the cripplingly depressed Jenna, and the rapist for company. She sure was selfish wanting to be with people!

she also knows he won’t ask her to leave. Because she’s pregnant, and because she’s the only wife left who so genuinely adores him.

It’s in the gaps you see that Rhine is, in fact, completely aware of the real situation. It’s not because Linden cares about her. Just what she’s carrying and the ego boost she can give him. But then Rhine says she feels sorry for how he can’t stand up for himself and does it for him by asking Cecily to leave.

Cecily goes reluctantly but without argument, almost like she might have wanted to stay close to Rhine due to actual concern for Rhine, but who cares what Cecily feels.

She and the rapist discuss what she’ll do when she can leave the hospital. He’s not keen on her leaving and insists she can’t possibly go such a long distance, even though she did that to get home. Also, he has a car and could just drive her if he felt actual concern. Instead, he says that she does have a place to stay here! When she doesn’t jump at the chance to become his wife again, he suddenly remembers that also he can let her stay somewhere that isn’t the prison he locked her in the first time. He’s got an uncle his dad disowned who conveniently lives nearby.

“He’s a little strange, but Rose liked him.” He says that last part with a laugh, and his cheeks light up with pink, and I strangely feel better.

Rose, you may recall, is the one who insisted the rapist get new girls to rape so he wouldn’t be sad once she died and escaped him. Rapist-chan tells us the hilarious story of how one time they were going to a party, but then Rose said she was so bored of parties and wanted to go anywhere else, so he told the driver to go to his uncle’s house. That Rose, so spirited, getting ferried to one place not of her choosing instead of another!

The uncle is “pro-naturalist” ie let’s all hate science and die, so they can be idiot soulmates, and Rhine coos over how super rebellious Rapist-chan is for visiting the guy occasionally despite it being against his dad’s wishes. She does not, of course, realize this whole conversation is the explicit evidence that her precious Linden was never a prisoner no matter how much she likes to think they’re the same.

So looks like rather than this book involve finding her brother, it’ll just be like the first book where she sits around near men talking about how hard things are for them and how she totally means to find her brother.