Review: Pandemonium

Pandemonium

by Lauren Oliver

My rating: 4.5 peaches


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. (goodreads description)




I read Delirium in the end of 2011 and waited impatiently for this sequel. It did not disappoint! 

The Juicy

Action!! So much more happened in this book that kept me on my toes and without sacrificing the beauty of description from the first book. It was a perfect mix of daring and danger with the poetry of Oliver's words. 

Lena! I love the growth in her character as she begins to fully accept herself and what she is coming to believe is true about her world and her life. She becomes more decisive as she changes to become like the wilds she now lives in. 

Gotta admit, the switching between "now" and "then" threw me for the first few chapters but as the book progressed it became a welcome change. When things got too intense in the "now" we switched into the relative calmness of learning what happened in the "then". Of course, eventually the "then

 and the "now" both became relatively intense until I couldn't put the book down until the end! Very suspenseful and hard on my sleeping schedule. 

The world building just continued to blow my mind. Introducing several different factions, some that opposed the "cure" and others who are against it in different levels of revolt, added more intrigue and  upped the tension. 

The Pits

Without being spoiler-y, I subtracted a half a point for a love triangle, boo. Why YA books, oh why do you keep subjecting me to love triangles :( But only a half a point because this one actually, somewhat, works...

Awkward Fuzz

Uh oh, some swearing in this one but very, very minor 

Some violence