12.25.2014 | Thursday

Annabel

Item: Annabel
Rating: 4
Author: Kim

category: Book Reviews
tag(s): young adult
0 Comments

title: Annabel
author: Lauren Oliver
series: Delirium #.5
published: 26 December 2012
publisher: HarperCollins
genre(s): dystopian, romance
pages: 44
source: bought
format: eBook
buy/shelve it: Amazon | B&N | BookBub | StoryGraph | Goodreads

rating:

| series rating:

the blurb

Lena's mother, Annabel, has always been a mystery—a ghost in Lena's past. Until now.

Discover her secrets in Lauren Oliver's brilliant original digital story set in the world of New York Times bestsellers Delirium and Pandemonium.

Lena Halloway's mother, Annabel, supposedly committed suicide when Lena was only six years old. That's the lie that Lena grew up believing, but the truth is very different. As a rebellious teenager, Annabel ran away from home and straight into the man she knew she was destined to marry. The world was different then—the regulations not as stringent, the cure only a decade old. Fast forward to the present, and Annabel is consigned to a dirty prison cell, where she nurtures her hope of escape and scratches one word over and over into the walls: Love.

But Annabel, like Lena, is a fighter. Through chapters that alternate between her past and present, Annabel reveals the story behind her failed cures, her marriage, the births of her children, her imprisonment, and, ultimately, her daring escape.

my review

Annabel is the story of Lena’s mother and it really gives readers of the series a little bit of insight to her. It starts years before Lena was born and shares Annabel’s experience with the cure and her time in the crypts. Annabel grew up as society was changing and she rebelled against it, eventually meeting the man who would become the love of her life, even if he would never be able to love her. It was interesting to get to know Annabel as more than a distant figure in Lena’s life, although I wish it had been a bit longer so we could have learned more about her time following her escape from the crypts.

While you can definitely read the trilogy withou this, I think it offers some depth and understanding that makes the overall story even better.

About Lauren Oliver

Lauren Oliver comes from a family of writers and so has always (mistakenly) believed that spending hours in front of the computer every day, mulling over the difference between “chortling” and “chuckling,” is normal. She has always been an avid reader.

She attended the University of Chicago, where she continued to be as impractical as possible by majoring in philosophy and literature. After college, she attended the MFA program at NYU and worked briefly as the world’s worst editorial assistant, and only marginally better assistant editor, at a major publishing house in New York. Her major career contributions during this time were flouting the corporate dress code at every possible turn and repeatedly breaking the printer. Before I Fall is her first published novel.

She is deeply grateful for the chance to continue writing, as she has never been particularly good at anything else.