12.19.2014 | Friday

Pandemonium

category: Book Reviews
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Pandemoniumtitle: Pandemonium
author: Lauren Oliver
series: Delirium #2
published: 8 February 2012
publisher: HarperCollins
genre(s): dystopian, romance
pages: 337
source: bought
format: eBook
buy/shelve it: Amazon | B&N | BookBub | Goodreads

rating: four-half-stars | series rating: four-stars

the blurb

I’m pushing aside
the memory of my nightmare,
pushing aside thoughts of Alex,
pushing aside thoughts of Hana
and my old school,
push,
push,
push,
like Raven taught me to do.
The old life is dead.
But the old Lena is dead too.
I buried her.
I left her beyond a fence,
behind a wall of smoke and flame.


my review

I loved Delirium and I loved Pandemonium just as much, if not more!  I enjoyed the “now and then” structure of it.  It gave us backstory a bit at a time and let the story of the now keep moving forward and that was an interesting mix.

Everything about Lena’s life has turned on edge since she escaped to the Wilds.  Her character arc is great as she struggles to adapt to  her new world.  Life there is so different from everything that she has known before and change is necessary.  She becomes strong, physically and mentally, and creates family out of strangers.  I love how real the characters are.  Some of those in the Wilds have spent most of their lives there.  They are fully adapted to the ways and customs of living in a world of survival and chaos.  But there are the others that spent much of their lives in the valid cities.  No matter what their reasons for escaping into the Wilds may have been, no matter what it was that they were fleeing, it is clear that it is hard to get past the teachings of the valid cities.  Those teachings linger even as they form new families and new societies.

The romance factor for Lena takes a new turn and, even now that I have finished, I am still not sure how I feel about it.  But there was so much sweetness and humanity about it and that I loved.

There was a lot more action in this book, and I loved it.  More than in Delirium, you could really get a sense of the dangers of the Wilds and living in the ways that these people must.  It was fascinating!

Things to love…

  • The action!
  • Lena and her character’s growth.
  • Julian and how his character changed.

Things I wanted more/less of…

  • For most of the book, it was Alex.  But then…!

I love this series and this is a great installment in the series.

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.

Rating Report
plot
four-half-stars
characters
four-half-stars
writing
four-stars
pacing
five-stars
Overall: four-half-stars

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