Review: Pandemonium by Lauren Oliver

Pages: 248

Genre: Dystopian, Romance
Format: e-book
Published February 28, 2012 by HarperCollins
Goodreads // Amazon

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.

This book was an amazing follow up to Delirium! I ended up completely falling for this book and devouring two thirds of it in one sitting. The summaries of the book I've found have all been very vague, but I think that's to avoid spoiling the end of Delirium. You can read my review of that book here.

The book transitions between two story lines- Lena's past and Lena's present. When I'd read other reviews mentioning this part of the book I was a little annoyed. Fortunately, upon reading this I can say that I was proven wrong! The alternating chapters were done extremely well and it really added something special to the story. The reader gets a glimpse at how far Lena has come since the end of Delirium. This just adds to the emotional rollercoaster that Lauren Oliver masterfully creates.

I really liked Lena in this book. While Delirium focuses on Lena growing up and finding out what love is all about, Pandemonium is about emotional healing and maturing. Even after all that happened to her she just becomes one of the strongest characters I've read in a long time. She ends up going from the rescued to the rescuer and that's due to a couple new characters. I ended up really liking Raven. She takes Lena under her wing and she knows the meaning of tough love and she does it with so much complexity. I constantly want to know more about her and the other characters Lena comes to meet. I feel like I can't discuss them without giving away a lot of the plot. After the ending of Delirium, I was expecting an emotional ride with some new characters introduced. We got that, but the rest of the story was just so different from my expectations. I wasn't prepared for a new love interest to be introduced and I wasn't prepared for me to not like him. The majority of the scenes he was in I felt like Lena was babysitting him. I can't wait to see what happens in Requiem.

Everything aside, the writing in this book is just absolutely fantastic. I love how the story unfolds before us in an even better way than Delirium. I have nothing but great things to say about Lauren Oliver as an author. The books of the Delirium trilogy have absolutely lived up to their hype

As per Lauren Oliver's style (so it seems), this book ended with a serious cliffhanger. I can't wait for the third instalment to answer all of the many questions that ending gave me! I'd definitely recommend this series to someone who is hesitant to get into dystopian literature. This one is a very plausible (for a dystopian) story, made real by the raw emotion of the main character.