Review- Pandemonium

Title: Pandemonium
Author: Lauren Oliver
Rating: 4 stars


Summary:

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:
So this story continue right where Delirium stops. You follow Lena on her journey to being a stronger person and finding who she really is.


The story is told by alternating between the Now and Then. Then being right after she
left Portland and entered the Wilds and everything that happened up until the Now. This shift in time periods is brilliant, it makes everything seem more real. Because in the Then, you get to see her grow from grief and anger, frustration and pain, but in the Now, Lena is already a different person-and yet still growing more.

I loved it! She grew in the first book, Delirium, and now she continues to grow. She is strong, has faced love and love lost, has been starved and dirty and beaten. But she comes out even stronger. I LOVE the character of Lena. I know love, and I know pain from the loss of that love. and I feel it with her.

The world in The Wilds is sad and dirty and scary, and you feel it. you feel the hunger and cold, you feel the sadness, weariness and emptiness they do.

The writing in this book is so believable.

This time, Lena has been tasked with following Julian, the son of the leader of the DFA- Deliria Free America. And you see their relationship grow.

My ONLY issues with it: again, just as in the last book, the romance is very subtle. They care for each other and then love each other, after a very short time. I think it believable that there is a bond, after near death experiences, but love? real love?

I don’t know. I felt that she loved Alex (from the first book) more than Julian… she still was mourning his death, after so long…

Man, part of me wants to give this book 5 stars, because of the writing and the character development and... just the whole story, But part of me wants to give it 2 or 3 stars because what I wanted as the reader didnt happen until the VERY LAST page! And I feel sorta... cheated. 

I don’t know, I am ANXIOUSLY and impatiently awaiting Requiem in March of next year!! (NEXT YEAR?? SOOOOO far away!)