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3.13k reviews for:

Pandemonium

Lauren Oliver

3.85 AVERAGE


not my favorite (Delirium was best) but SO SO GOOD. Lena’s transformation is fantastic. she has become a total bad a$$. she fights for what she believes in and it’s been amazing to see her growth. the ending (SHOOK!) this was my second time reading it and wow. excited to read the last one.

This book was better than the first one. While the first one was a weak three stars this one could have almost made it to a four had it not slipped up in a few vital places.

I loved that it switched times between directly after the events of the first, although annoyingly the story isn't finished, and months after that when Lena is helping the Resistance.

Both of these stories is fascinating and contributes not only to the wider storyline but also the character development.

I liked all of the new characters and Julian grew on me despite acting like he was 14 for most of the book.

However there are definitely a few reasons this book just did not work for me.

SpoilerJulian is no naive and dumb that it is difficult to imagine Lena going from an actual functioning adult like Alex to this. Alex being alive was obvious from the beginning and I'm going to despise the next book because love triangles are stupid and lazy writing. The woman rescuing Lena from the raid was so obviously her mother that the insanely lazy set up of finding a book with all dangerous prisoners in and then realising the numbers match made me want to throw my kindle across the room. Lazy, not believable and downright idiotic. Lost the book a possible fourth star and almost downgraded it to two.

Honestly the book was a bit slowwwwww But the ending is BOSS!

I was surprised by how much I got into this! I read [b:Delirium|11614718|Delirium (Delirium, #1)|Lauren Oliver|http://d202m5krfqbpi5.cloudfront.net/books/1327890411s/11614718.jpg|10342808] a couple years ago when it was new, and I think I just had like, dystopia fatigue. But now I've been off dystopias for awhile and I took the audiobook of this since it was about the same length as the trip to my parents' house, and also I just read [b:Liesl & Po|10425811|Liesl & Po|Lauren Oliver|http://d202m5krfqbpi5.cloudfront.net/books/1298937848s/10425811.jpg|14615333] and was feeling favorably toward Lauren Oliver.

I meant to read a summary of Delirium before I left, but I forgot to do so, but I basically did okay at getting Pandemonium. She does a good job of feeding you back the stuff you need to know.

Also I think maybe the first book had a lot of heavy lifting to do with worldbuilding and in this one things are more established and Lena has more adventures and such?? IDK IDK. Whatever, I'm into it, and I put myself on the list for [b:Requiem|9593913|Requiem (Delirium, #3)|Lauren Oliver|http://d202m5krfqbpi5.cloudfront.net/books/1340992438s/9593913.jpg|14480925] & will def be reading it as soon as possible.

Readalikes include basically every other YA dystopia, whatever.

The audiobook I felt neither subtracted or added to the experience. The reader was fine, but not one of those were I would say the audiobook was way better than the text book. It was a good car book though because it's pretty fast paced and exciting.

oh and one of my favorite thing was
Spoilerhow Raven is like too tough and Lena runs away to save Julien and she's thinking she's done with the revolution forever but then Raven realizes she was wrong and comes to help. I think it's nice to see that kind of character development and friendship or w/e, and I think a lot of authors would have gone for the "Lena and Julien against the world, no one understands!!" narrative, but I really appreciated that Raven etc came to help. YAY!


Oh and I liked that there was a canonically queer couple in a way that was like realistic and casual but also kind of a big deal because homosexuality is illegal in this dystopia? It'd be cool if our protagonist were queer but, you know, better than nothing. Or maybe that will be the twist in the 3rd book!!

4.5/5 stars

I loved this book. It was intense and I was pulled in from early on. Lauren Oliver's writing is lovely and evocative. This book takes place in a different setting than the first one. It goes back and forth between then and now sections. The then sections pick up a bit after Delirium left off and show Lena's life with the Invalids. The now sections are further down the line when Lena is working as part of the resistance. I found both engaging. I thought structuring the books like this was a good way to get to know the characters and and see what life is like for those on the other side of the fence while advancing the plot at the same time. There was a certain new development that I liked, but the ending caught me off guard. It shouldn't have, but after reading the whole book without any hints, I made certain assumptions that tuned out not to be true and this may affect how I feel about the series depending on how things play out in the next one. I found this book more enjoyable than its precedent and would've given it a higher rating if it had a proper conclusion. It feels almost incomplete. I wish I could read the next one now.

15/3/2013: 3.5 stars. I still enjoyed it, but less than the first time.
SpoilerI liked it more when I thought it was a book about healing and learning to love again after the death of a loved one. I guess that is still what it is, but Alex AND Lena's mom showing up at the end and the love triangle messes that up for me. Brining them in so late in the book made me feel cheated. As much as I liked Julian, I found Alex/Lena more believable, and liked the development of their relationship better, so needless to say, the romance in this book didn't work for me.

"We are all identical drips and drops of people hovering, waiting to be tipped, waiting for someone to show us the way, to pour us down a path".

Lauren's writing is still brilliant on this one. I will be reading definitely more books from her. Now my thoughts on "Pandemonium":
The second book of the series is narrated again by Lena; her past and present self. Our heroine is more brave in this book than in the first one and she believes more in herself. I liked the second installment a bit more than the first one, perhaps because Raven was in it and not annoying Hana =P

There were lots of highlighted quotes on this one but this a quote that I really loved: (about banned books)
"Some of them -the best ones- are doors".

They are indeed, dear Lauren.

More on the story --Spoilers ahead--
Lena has managed to cross the fence and end up to the wilds leaving behind Alex. She is of course heartbroken. As she learns to adapt to her new life she meets new people along the way like Raven, a fierce, independent girl only a few years older than Lena. I loved Raven and how tough she was. Lena's present self narration is about her persona as an 'invalid' (like Alex was). In the present storyline, she behaves like a cured and she a part of the resistance.
Now what knocked one star was the new love interest: Julian. Although I didn't hate the introduction of a new romance, I didn't love it either. The story between Lena and Julian is basically the repetition of the story of Alex and Lena but switched: in the first book Alex was first not honest with Lena, he was the one that made her 'sick', he was the strong one. In this book, it's the other way around: now Lena is the one that is being dishonest with Julian (at least at first), she is the one that gives him the deliria and she is the strong one. I get that this parallel was made to see perhaps the growth of our heroine, but still..
That being said, I quite liked Julian. Truth to be told we did get to know more about Julian than we did for Alex. The relationship with Lena had a nice pace too.
Which brings me to my biggest complain with these series: time. What I mean by that is that everything in these books is happening too damn fast: Lena fell for Alex too fast (being in love at eighteen can be instantaneous but still), she adapted to the Wilds way too fast and she got over Alex too fast.
As a final note the ending wasn't exactly shocking but still I enjoyed that
Spoiler Alex is alive!


This was much better than the original. I liked the original as well and had no major problems with it, but the character of Lena is so much more realistic in this book, and the writing style has shifted into a style I really like. Some of the shockers were things that I predicted early, such as the surprise ending, and the revelations about Lena's mother, but it was still a nice journey getting there. The building of the relationship between Lena and Julian reminded me very heavily of the cave scenes in The Hunger Games, but I still enjoyed it all. The shifting time POV was also an interesting aspect of this book. I'm excited for the sequel!

Some bits were obvious (
Spoilerher mother, Alex being alive
) but that didn't stop it being good. V. enjoyable, particularly liked the world building.

SpoilerI'm not a massive fan of love triangles, so part of me really wanted Alex to be really dead, or for Julian to actually die, or for them both to end up dead, but I knew it'd never really happen. Of course I'm still going to read the 3rd book, but I'd have been interested to see how dark it could get if all the people she loved kept dying or being cured (i.e. as good as dead), how far she could've been pushed.

Leuke dytopische serie