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3.85 AVERAGE
3.85 AVERAGE
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
I was very confused throughout this book with the dual timelines, because it was very unclear what I was reading until closer to the last 25% of the book. I will be reading the next book in the series just because of the cliffhanger that this book left off on, I need to know what happens.
adventurous
challenging
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
I love Alex. And I love Julian. Can she just have both, Lauren Oliver? Pretty please?
tense
medium-paced
Meh.
This second book in the Delirium series fell pretty flat compared to some of the more outstanding dystopian novels by other authors. My biggest problem with it was how the plot poked along between “Now” and “Then” so that it took forever for anything to actually start happening. Yes, it helped establish the characters of Raven and Tack, but couldn't that have been done with a bit more “Now” and a few well-placed flashbacks? I wanted book 2 to have some action, some forward motion, but it took forever to get the ball rolling and get some things happening. When the action finally did start happening, it was totally predictable.
I’m so sick and tired of dumber-than-could-possibly-be-dumb main characters! Didn't people learn anything from Bella?! There are so many scenes where Lena walks into what she knows is a dangerous situation but leaves her weapon in an impossible to reach place. “Hmm, there are people with guns coming after me, and I am highly outnumbered. I guess I’ll stick my gun in my backpack. It will help me there. And why would I bother taking extra guns or ammo? There are two of us. One gun should be enough.” (That’s not a real quote, but it might as well be.) There is one scene of mayhem when she takes down a girl who has a knife on her belt. Does she take the knife off the girl’s belt? No! She hops over her, and on THE VERY NEXT PAGE we read, “Mentally I curse the metal detectors and all the body scans. I would give anything to have a knife, a screwdriver, something.” Ahhh! I had to put the book down to rant at my husband about that one. And don’t even get me started on the umbrella! I’ll just say this one thing: Stupid!!
I’ll save the spoiler for the end of this review and wrap up here. The book was duller than I wanted it to be, but it did finally pick up in the end. Many things frustrated me about Lena’s stupidity and how stupid Oliver must think her readers are to actually believe a person that stupid could possibly exist. I don’t regret reading it. Fun fluff, nothing more. These books are certainly not life-changers or eye-openers. I’ll probably read the last book out of curiosity, but it’s not hitting the top of my recommend list. Neither would I forbid friends from reading it. Obviously, it makes for some good rants ;)
Content: Seemed to have more repetition of the S word, which was really annoying--not necessary! Expected violence, but nothing horrifying in description. Teenage obsessing over bodies and kissing.
This second book in the Delirium series fell pretty flat compared to some of the more outstanding dystopian novels by other authors. My biggest problem with it was how the plot poked along between “Now” and “Then” so that it took forever for anything to actually start happening. Yes, it helped establish the characters of Raven and Tack, but couldn't that have been done with a bit more “Now” and a few well-placed flashbacks? I wanted book 2 to have some action, some forward motion, but it took forever to get the ball rolling and get some things happening. When the action finally did start happening, it was totally predictable.
I’m so sick and tired of dumber-than-could-possibly-be-dumb main characters! Didn't people learn anything from Bella?! There are so many scenes where Lena walks into what she knows is a dangerous situation but leaves her weapon in an impossible to reach place. “Hmm, there are people with guns coming after me, and I am highly outnumbered. I guess I’ll stick my gun in my backpack. It will help me there. And why would I bother taking extra guns or ammo? There are two of us. One gun should be enough.” (That’s not a real quote, but it might as well be.) There is one scene of mayhem when she takes down a girl who has a knife on her belt. Does she take the knife off the girl’s belt? No! She hops over her, and on THE VERY NEXT PAGE we read, “Mentally I curse the metal detectors and all the body scans. I would give anything to have a knife, a screwdriver, something.” Ahhh! I had to put the book down to rant at my husband about that one. And don’t even get me started on the umbrella! I’ll just say this one thing:
Spoiler
If someone you trust who is part of a resistance hands you an umbrella while you are surrounded by police and regulators and you look up and realize it’s a beautiful, sunny day, there’s probably more to the umbrella than meets the eye.I’ll save the spoiler for the end of this review and wrap up here. The book was duller than I wanted it to be, but it did finally pick up in the end. Many things frustrated me about Lena’s stupidity and how stupid Oliver must think her readers are to actually believe a person that stupid could possibly exist. I don’t regret reading it. Fun fluff, nothing more. These books are certainly not life-changers or eye-openers. I’ll probably read the last book out of curiosity, but it’s not hitting the top of my recommend list. Neither would I forbid friends from reading it. Obviously, it makes for some good rants ;)
Content: Seemed to have more repetition of the S word, which was really annoying--not necessary! Expected violence, but nothing horrifying in description. Teenage obsessing over bodies and kissing.
Spoiler
Ok, here’s the spoiler part: Love triangle? Seriously? Did we have to? I actually was impressed at the end of the first novel when Alex got left behind in enemy hands. I thought, “Kudos to you, Lauren Oliver, for doing something a little more unexpected.” I was actually okay with the thought of Alex being dead because Lena’s character could grow from it. But I was well aware of the fact that we didn't actually see him KILLED. Still, I wouldn't have minded him coming back around, or better yet, Lena having to find a way to rescue him. But then Oliver had to break out the love triangle.
adventurous
dark
sad
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated
It’s been a couple of months since I’ve read this book, but apparently I still have some things to say. This is going to be long, and I have strong feelings about it, so I apologize in advance on both counts.
First of all, I hate that cover. Hate it hate it hate it. What is it with publishers and putting these nondescript shiny-lipped teenage girls on the cover and then calling it a day? And what the fuck is going on with that flower over that girl’s ear? What, is she like, sticking her head out of flower bush or something? HI, MY NAME IS LENA AND I’LL JUST BE SQUATTING IN THIS BUSH WHILE YOU READ ABOUT ME IN THIS HERE BOOK. DON’T MIND ME. MY SKIN IS GLOWING LIKE AN ALIEN AND I’M NOT BEING CREEPY AT ALL. It’s completely awful in every way and not even relevant to the story or theme of the novel. Fail, YA publishers, FAIL. PLEASE STOP DOING THIS.
The surprising news? I liked the book. I liked it much, much, much, much better than it’s predecessor. Delirium was such a conflicting and frustrating read for me, but nearly everything I had an issue with in Delirium was either answered directly or significantly reduced in Pandemonium. I went into the novel ready to give it a fair shake, even though in the back of my mind I had essentially written the series off, and I was completely surprised at how much I enjoyed it.
Pandemonium picks up about six months after Lena’s flight into the Wilds. She has found an ersatz family in her fellow rebels, and has become firmly entrenched in the rebellion. During flashbacks which run through almost the whole book, we watch as Lena transforms from a scared newbie to a battle and loss-hardened rebel. She ends up in New York where, posing as a student, she becomes involved in a kidnapping plot with the wealthy son of a fanatic who is famous for promoting The Cure, even for people too young to handle it. Even for his son, Julian, whom The Cure would most likely kill due to Julian’s previous operations to remove cancerous brain tumors. The alternating structure of the book keeps it flowing at a lightning fast pace, and the effect is that as we watch Lena growing as a person, in terms of the narrative, she is simultaneously helping Julian to heal and grow as well. And of course they fall in love and have adventures, and there’s a conspiracy and people who live underground, and there were some other details as well, but I don’t remember them right now.
Here are some reasons why I liked Pandemonium so much more than Delirium:
Delirium Complaint #1: Too much flowery language, not enough story.
While Oliver’s style remains consistent from book to book (and thus consistently bothers me), the substance of Pandemonium as a story is dramatically different from Delirium. Because Pandemonium had an actual plot to concern itself with and there were actual things happening on the page, Oliver didn’t have to constantly resort to diving deep into Lena’s psyche, thus necessitating page after page after page of poetic metaphors that are cool at first but then quickly begin to grate once you realize that while it may be a pretty cool trick she’s pulling out of her writer’s handbag, it’s basically the only trick she has. Story is about substance, and metaphor does not constitute substance. In fact, metaphor (or simile) by itself often feels very shallow if it’s not attached to something real and concrete. Pandemonium had concrete shit happening all over the place; it had movement, and thus I was either so busy being caught up in the story that I didn’t notice her overly written poetic imagery as much, or she didn’t use as much of it as filler because she didn’t need to — she had a plot instead.
Delirium Complaint #2: Alex.
I know I’m in the minority on this one, but look, I just don’t like Alex all that much as a character, and I was happy he wasn’t in this book. I was holding out hope that he had actually died, but I knew it was a fool’s hope, and not just because I’d been spoiled. It seems YA authors these days just can’t resist the siren lure of a love triangle, lo though it may lead them to their deaths. It’s not that I don’t like the idea of Alex, because I do, or that I think he’s a jerk or something, because I don’t — I just find him useless as a character in this book series. In Delirium, he was nothing but perfect and deliberately sculpted man-candy for Lena to fall in love with. He was a cypher, a catalyst through which Lena’s change of character was enacted. He was not a character in his own right, and he was much too tragically perfect to read as real to me. He was designed to be the perfect lure to make Lena realize how fucked up her life really was, to get her out of Portland and into the Wilds, and he served that purpose admirably. The problem is that he didn’t really do anything for me beyond that purpose.
But Oliver did something really interesting in Pandemonium, which is that she essentially gave Lena Alex’s role. In Delirium, Alex was the rebel, but in book two it was Lena taking the lead, showing new enemy turned boy-toy, Julian, the light. This accomplished two things, both of which I felt were missing in Delirium: 1) It gave Lena a more active trajectory — instead of things happening to her, she makes things happen, and 2) It allowed Julian as the love interest du jour to actually develop some character depth outside of his relationship to Lena. Lena being the new Alex allows us to re-experience the journey through Julian’s eyes, to see how far Lena has come as a person, but more importantly, it finally allows us the chance to see how that change is actually effected internally. Giving Julian a journey like that instantly made him a more interesting, dynamic romantic lead than Alex was because he wasn’t just some perfect dude dropping in from the heavens to get the plot (and Lena’s heart) moving.
I liked Julian. I liked him a lot. I may even love him. I liked reading about his life as the son of someone so entrenched in that world. I liked seeing his assumptions crumble in front of him. I liked seeing him fall in love with Lena and grow as a person. Even if it does turn out to sort of be all orchestrated and even if the Lena/Julian romance is trope heavy as all get out (a couple of problems I had with this book, see below), it was enjoyably so.
Delirium Complaint #3: Predictability.
Even though this book was much more enjoyable for me than its predecessor, the underlying problems of the main narrative are still there. And the biggest underlying problem with the story is its predictability. I don’t necessarily have issues with predictable stories as long as its clear they acknowledge they’re being predictable and not like they’re writing this sort of thing for the VERY. FIRST. TIME. EVER. But Oliver is approaching this world like it and all its moving parts is a totally original creation, and that still kind of grates on me. Like we’re supposed to be surprised that Lena falls for Julian, that the whole thing turns out to be orchestrated, that Lena’s mom turns out to be that guard lady, etc. And for that matter, like we’re supposed to be surprised by the whole conceit of the world, which is really just one variation among many, many YA dystopias. And again, this wouldn’t be a problem for me, except that everything about the world Oliver has created feels overly familiar except its central premise. Like you could almost substitute Oliver’s THING (The Cure) with the THINGS from The Selection, Divergent, Everneath, etc. You have to have more than an original central conceit — the whole world has to be fleshed out, and it wouldn’t matter if tropes and predictable things were happening if the world was specific and felt real enough. Pandemonium is a lot better in this regard than Delirium was, but the problem is still there for me. Most of this story is still interchangeable with other books like it.
And on top of all that, Oliver decided it would be a good idea to add in a damn love triangle. It would have been incredibly brave of her to kill off Alex. I mean, can you imagine? That is probably the least predictable thing she could have done. As it is, this all feels like familiar territory, so why are we stomping all over it? I’ve been here before, didn’t really like the view the first time. Show me something new, not something that was done as soon as Twilight wrung it to pieces and then handed those pieces off to The Hunger Games (which is actually one of the better done love triangles because of the way it poses the choice between Gale and Peeta as Katniss choosing between different versions of herself, as opposed to OMG THIS IS TWU WUV). I seem to be in the minority in not really liking Alex here, and I KNOW I’m in the minority in wishing he was actually dead, but I want it to be clear that it’s because he was more of a function than an actual character for me. In contrast, Julian is INCREDIBLY likable precisely because he’s dreamy on top of actually being allowed to grow and change, and we’re also allowed actual glimpses into his psyche. We learn about him and learn to love him as Lena does, and also in contrast to Delirium, I can see exactly why Lena might fall for him. They’re kindred spirits.
Really, this book probably deserves more like 3.5 stars, mostly because of the ending and the predictability, but I was just so taken with my surprise enjoyment of the rest of it that I was clicking 4 stars over on Goodreads before I even knew it. For those of you who liked Delirium, you probably won’t like this one as much (you might even hate it), but for the rest of you, check this one out. If it could surprise me, it might surprise you, too.
First of all, I hate that cover. Hate it hate it hate it. What is it with publishers and putting these nondescript shiny-lipped teenage girls on the cover and then calling it a day? And what the fuck is going on with that flower over that girl’s ear? What, is she like, sticking her head out of flower bush or something? HI, MY NAME IS LENA AND I’LL JUST BE SQUATTING IN THIS BUSH WHILE YOU READ ABOUT ME IN THIS HERE BOOK. DON’T MIND ME. MY SKIN IS GLOWING LIKE AN ALIEN AND I’M NOT BEING CREEPY AT ALL. It’s completely awful in every way and not even relevant to the story or theme of the novel. Fail, YA publishers, FAIL. PLEASE STOP DOING THIS.
The surprising news? I liked the book. I liked it much, much, much, much better than it’s predecessor. Delirium was such a conflicting and frustrating read for me, but nearly everything I had an issue with in Delirium was either answered directly or significantly reduced in Pandemonium. I went into the novel ready to give it a fair shake, even though in the back of my mind I had essentially written the series off, and I was completely surprised at how much I enjoyed it.
Pandemonium picks up about six months after Lena’s flight into the Wilds. She has found an ersatz family in her fellow rebels, and has become firmly entrenched in the rebellion. During flashbacks which run through almost the whole book, we watch as Lena transforms from a scared newbie to a battle and loss-hardened rebel. She ends up in New York where, posing as a student, she becomes involved in a kidnapping plot with the wealthy son of a fanatic who is famous for promoting The Cure, even for people too young to handle it. Even for his son, Julian, whom The Cure would most likely kill due to Julian’s previous operations to remove cancerous brain tumors. The alternating structure of the book keeps it flowing at a lightning fast pace, and the effect is that as we watch Lena growing as a person, in terms of the narrative, she is simultaneously helping Julian to heal and grow as well. And of course they fall in love and have adventures, and there’s a conspiracy and people who live underground, and there were some other details as well, but I don’t remember them right now.
Here are some reasons why I liked Pandemonium so much more than Delirium:
Delirium Complaint #1: Too much flowery language, not enough story.
While Oliver’s style remains consistent from book to book (and thus consistently bothers me), the substance of Pandemonium as a story is dramatically different from Delirium. Because Pandemonium had an actual plot to concern itself with and there were actual things happening on the page, Oliver didn’t have to constantly resort to diving deep into Lena’s psyche, thus necessitating page after page after page of poetic metaphors that are cool at first but then quickly begin to grate once you realize that while it may be a pretty cool trick she’s pulling out of her writer’s handbag, it’s basically the only trick she has. Story is about substance, and metaphor does not constitute substance. In fact, metaphor (or simile) by itself often feels very shallow if it’s not attached to something real and concrete. Pandemonium had concrete shit happening all over the place; it had movement, and thus I was either so busy being caught up in the story that I didn’t notice her overly written poetic imagery as much, or she didn’t use as much of it as filler because she didn’t need to — she had a plot instead.
Delirium Complaint #2: Alex.
I know I’m in the minority on this one, but look, I just don’t like Alex all that much as a character, and I was happy he wasn’t in this book. I was holding out hope that he had actually died, but I knew it was a fool’s hope, and not just because I’d been spoiled. It seems YA authors these days just can’t resist the siren lure of a love triangle, lo though it may lead them to their deaths. It’s not that I don’t like the idea of Alex, because I do, or that I think he’s a jerk or something, because I don’t — I just find him useless as a character in this book series. In Delirium, he was nothing but perfect and deliberately sculpted man-candy for Lena to fall in love with. He was a cypher, a catalyst through which Lena’s change of character was enacted. He was not a character in his own right, and he was much too tragically perfect to read as real to me. He was designed to be the perfect lure to make Lena realize how fucked up her life really was, to get her out of Portland and into the Wilds, and he served that purpose admirably. The problem is that he didn’t really do anything for me beyond that purpose.
But Oliver did something really interesting in Pandemonium, which is that she essentially gave Lena Alex’s role. In Delirium, Alex was the rebel, but in book two it was Lena taking the lead, showing new enemy turned boy-toy, Julian, the light. This accomplished two things, both of which I felt were missing in Delirium: 1) It gave Lena a more active trajectory — instead of things happening to her, she makes things happen, and 2) It allowed Julian as the love interest du jour to actually develop some character depth outside of his relationship to Lena. Lena being the new Alex allows us to re-experience the journey through Julian’s eyes, to see how far Lena has come as a person, but more importantly, it finally allows us the chance to see how that change is actually effected internally. Giving Julian a journey like that instantly made him a more interesting, dynamic romantic lead than Alex was because he wasn’t just some perfect dude dropping in from the heavens to get the plot (and Lena’s heart) moving.
I liked Julian. I liked him a lot. I may even love him. I liked reading about his life as the son of someone so entrenched in that world. I liked seeing his assumptions crumble in front of him. I liked seeing him fall in love with Lena and grow as a person. Even if it does turn out to sort of be all orchestrated and even if the Lena/Julian romance is trope heavy as all get out (a couple of problems I had with this book, see below), it was enjoyably so.
Delirium Complaint #3: Predictability.
Even though this book was much more enjoyable for me than its predecessor, the underlying problems of the main narrative are still there. And the biggest underlying problem with the story is its predictability. I don’t necessarily have issues with predictable stories as long as its clear they acknowledge they’re being predictable and not like they’re writing this sort of thing for the VERY. FIRST. TIME. EVER. But Oliver is approaching this world like it and all its moving parts is a totally original creation, and that still kind of grates on me. Like we’re supposed to be surprised that Lena falls for Julian, that the whole thing turns out to be orchestrated, that Lena’s mom turns out to be that guard lady, etc. And for that matter, like we’re supposed to be surprised by the whole conceit of the world, which is really just one variation among many, many YA dystopias. And again, this wouldn’t be a problem for me, except that everything about the world Oliver has created feels overly familiar except its central premise. Like you could almost substitute Oliver’s THING (The Cure) with the THINGS from The Selection, Divergent, Everneath, etc. You have to have more than an original central conceit — the whole world has to be fleshed out, and it wouldn’t matter if tropes and predictable things were happening if the world was specific and felt real enough. Pandemonium is a lot better in this regard than Delirium was, but the problem is still there for me. Most of this story is still interchangeable with other books like it.
And on top of all that, Oliver decided it would be a good idea to add in a damn love triangle. It would have been incredibly brave of her to kill off Alex. I mean, can you imagine? That is probably the least predictable thing she could have done. As it is, this all feels like familiar territory, so why are we stomping all over it? I’ve been here before, didn’t really like the view the first time. Show me something new, not something that was done as soon as Twilight wrung it to pieces and then handed those pieces off to The Hunger Games (which is actually one of the better done love triangles because of the way it poses the choice between Gale and Peeta as Katniss choosing between different versions of herself, as opposed to OMG THIS IS TWU WUV). I seem to be in the minority in not really liking Alex here, and I KNOW I’m in the minority in wishing he was actually dead, but I want it to be clear that it’s because he was more of a function than an actual character for me. In contrast, Julian is INCREDIBLY likable precisely because he’s dreamy on top of actually being allowed to grow and change, and we’re also allowed actual glimpses into his psyche. We learn about him and learn to love him as Lena does, and also in contrast to Delirium, I can see exactly why Lena might fall for him. They’re kindred spirits.
Really, this book probably deserves more like 3.5 stars, mostly because of the ending and the predictability, but I was just so taken with my surprise enjoyment of the rest of it that I was clicking 4 stars over on Goodreads before I even knew it. For those of you who liked Delirium, you probably won’t like this one as much (you might even hate it), but for the rest of you, check this one out. If it could surprise me, it might surprise you, too.
I'm speechless !
to be honest when I read Deliruim I had no clue that all that chaos could happen !
and I liked it but it didn't make me jump off my seat from excitment in the beginning , and the Ending made me misreable because of Alex's death
but I was 100% sure that he wasn't dead , he can't just die simply !
and while I was reading Pandemonuim I let go of the Idea coz I didn't see any hint of it , then .. BAM !!
I have nothing to say really , just that I don't want to be Lena right now
and I can't wait till I read Requim !
to be honest when I read Deliruim I had no clue that all that chaos could happen !
and I liked it but it didn't make me jump off my seat from excitment in the beginning , and the Ending made me misreable because of Alex's death
but I was 100% sure that he wasn't dead , he can't just die simply !
and while I was reading Pandemonuim I let go of the Idea coz I didn't see any hint of it , then .. BAM !!
I have nothing to say really , just that I don't want to be Lena right now
and I can't wait till I read Requim !
adventurous
dark
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
dark
emotional
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes