Publisher: HarperTeen (February 28th, 2012)
Reading Level: Young Adult
Hardback: 375 pages
Source: ARC from Publisher
Series: Delirium #2
Rating: 4 of 5 stars
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.
Lauren Oliver delivers an electrifying follow-up to her acclaimed New York Times bestseller, Delirium. This riveting, brilliant novel crackles with the fire of fierce defiance, forbidden romance, and the sparks of a revolution about to ignite.
Review: SPOILERS!! Pandemonium may be just one of the many dystopian/post-apocalyptic novels we have seen recently; however, it will always stick out to me simply because of the complexity of Lauren Oliver's writing.
I admit, it took me a while to get into the groove of this book. The chapters alternate between "now" and "then" and I had a hard time figuring out when was now and what was then. Yes, slightly confusing. About mid-way into the story I felt more comfortable with that structure. It gave us a glimpse of what Lena is doing now, compared to where she was once she first got into the Wilds. Lena "then" was more weak, a bit whiny, and sort of got on my nerves. Then again, she is dealing with the fact that Alex is not with her so I tried to understand her struggles to fit into this foreign world.
If anything, Lena's time in the Wilds showed her exactly what she needed to survive. She learned how people take care of each other and the true dangers of living away from everything she knew.
The "now" part of the story takes place months later with Lena in New York. I won't go into a lot of details of this section because it was part of the surprise of the book. I was fascinated reading what was going on and how Lena was involved. But I will say that this is the part of the story where the love-triangle begins and we meet Julian.
Lena and Julian do have a very unlikely connection and I liked that a lot. I felt Julian was a wonderful character to add to this story; but, I have a difficult time with this particular relationship. Part of the enjoyment of Delirum was the honest, true love story between Lena and Alex. I feel that is a bit tainted now. This made me become irritated towards Lena during the end of this book and question her feelings. Plus, the cliffhanger didn't help. I like to have a book end during a good place where I can feel good about what I just read. I didn't really feel that way at the end of Pandemonium.
Although I didn't like this sequel nearly as much as Delirium, Lauren's writing still continues to amaze me. Each new plot line or setting is beautifully crafted and it really transports the reader into the story.
Recommended: Dystopian/Post-apocalyptic fans. Read Delirium first.
I'm kind of bummed it didn't turn out to be as good as DELIRIUM, but I can see how hard it would be to live up to that. I'm interested to see how it all plays out though, especially with the alternating points of view! Glad you enjoyed it (:
ReplyDeleteSpoilers! SPOILERS!!! I've already read Pandemonium so it doesn't matter to me but you might want to put a spoiler warning on this post. I guess it isn't TOTALLY spoilery but if you're telling us there's a love triangle then people are probably gonna be able to draw their own conclusions about Alex. Just saying. :P
ReplyDeleteLOL, Very true Julia. I hadn't thought about that. I'll change that right now. Thanks for telling me :)
DeleteI was really irritated with Lena... Alex practically died for her...ugh :/... i hope she ends up with Alex
ReplyDeleteI just finishes reading it and I too question her feelings for Alex. This book was very well written so no gripe about that but, it's the love between Alex and Lena that made the story so compelling. I was hoping that for once we would have a heroine that didn't go all high school and fall for another guy so quick. That she would end the story stronger but alone, because no other man would ever live up to her true love. In terms of writing Delirium and Pandemonium are better than Matched and Crossed but at least the Matched series SPOILER!!!!!!!! was able to keep the heroine waiting and only loving the first guy. I will read the last one just to see how Lauren finishes the story but I am really disappointed.
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