Pandemonium (Delirium #2) by Lauren Oliver

July 31, 2014     erinbook     Book review

Pandemonium (Delirium #2) by Lauren Oliver


Release Date: February 28, 2012
Publisher: Harper Teen
400 Pages
Received: Bought from B&N
Format: Paperback


Rating: 

4 Nuts
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Description: 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: I don’t like being wrong about things but boy was I wrong about this series. I thought at worst it was going to be a painful read, at best a generic and dull dystopian. Nope, nope, nope! Not painful, not dull. Pretty awesome actually. Not fantastic but certainly good.
This book outshines it predecessor, that’s for sure. Now, normally I don’t like books that keep going backwards and forwards in time. For the most part it comes out as a complete mess and I get very annoyed. It seems that Oliver has managed to make because I loved it here. Usually when authors do this I’m far more interested in one of the sections of time than the other. I did not find that here, instead I was just as anxious to find out what was happening in both the then and now chapters. I have to applaud Lauren Oliver for that because that is very difficult to do.
The one major issue I have with Pandemonium is the obvious set up for a love triangle. Why? Why must we play this game? I am so tired of the love triangle trope, but seeing how I did not have to deal with actual “triangling” here I will not get into that. Suffice to say I am on to you, Delirium series!
Related to that, of the three “big reveals” at the end of the book, only one was any real surprise. Is it because I’ve just read so much or is it just that obvious? I’m inclined to believe it is the second one.
Still, the new characters that this book introduces are so interesting and they make up for a lot of the problems (of which there aren’t that many) here. Raven and Hunter are two of my favorite new character in this book, for different reasons. Raven is such a strong, organized character. Hunter doesn’t get a lot of page time but I got a bit attached to him despite that. It’s nice to have a couple characters with no romantic designs on anyone.
I really liked this book, there was a lot going on and it did not get suck in second book suck. I certainly hope that the last book does not become based solely on the love triangle I see brewing. We can do better. With ARC August and Austen in August coming up, I do not know when I will get to reading the last book but hopefully I can sneak it in.
What did you think of Pandemonium? Tell me in the comments!
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