Reviews

Panic by Lauren Oliver

anslow's review against another edition

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dark tense medium-paced

3.5

kkoerth613's review against another edition

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5.0

This book was amazing. It tests your worst fears and makes you go against them. I think that if I were a character in this book, participating in Panic, I would NOT last very long.

Heather is amazing. I love how strong she is through everything thing that happens. She went through not only the Panic crap, but also the crap in her life, her mom, Lily, Nat, and Bishop.

I personally wanted to slap Bishop so much. But whatever.

akookieforyou's review against another edition

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2.0

*2.5*

O.W.L.'s Readathon 2019

This book was just okay. It had an interesting premise, but the delivery left a lot to be desired. The characters were fine, nothing too special. The game aspect ending up being one of the less interesting aspects of the actual story, which was disappointing, especially since that was the main reason I picked this up. I wished this could have been that novel for me, but sadly, it was not.

carriesouthard's review against another edition

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5.0

Kept me on the edge of my seat to see how far these kids will go to win the game, Panic. Great read.

suedas_books's review against another edition

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3.0

I wanted to get this book for a very long time but the reviews always made me second guess the decision and postpone the purchase.

When I got my Ereader I finally got myself “Panic“

The general idea of the book is really good. I also liked the characters a lot since they all were different. They had cool features but all of them were toxic in their own ways. So basically teenagers. Miss Lauren Oliver portrayed that very well.
I enjoyed to see the real struggle of Heather and Lily in an abusive home and how they tried to survive on their own.

The challenges were really exciting and thrilling and the settings were spot on to give the whole challenge a more sinister twist.

However, I found this book very predictable. That Bishop was part of the jury, that the tigers were incorporated into the games (like why tf were there just tigers in the garden of a random lady in a small town in America Whaatt) and that one of the tigers would kind of get in the middle of the duel.

Talking about the duel it was written very well.
I was scared to read the next lines but read them in record time because I needed to see if the car would explode or not and if Heather would make it out in time.

While all of that was written so well and hectic and exciting, that segment ended very suddenly.
She just faced the tiger AND WASNT AFRAID ANYMORE EXCUSE ME MISS GIRL?!


Also, I know there are main characters and side characters but some were mentioned pretty frequently but they or their actions didn’t had such an impact (I. e. Dodge‘s mother (she maybe had one talking segment), Ricky (did he end up with Dayna?), Kristas boyfriend (what was he all about anyways, except for drugs?) some things just didn’t go in depth the way I hoped they would.

Lastly, what happened to dayna? Did she manage to walk again? Miss Lauren Oliver I need an answer, thank you :)

Therefore, I’ll give this book 3,5 stars.

rosies_elfhame's review against another edition

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4.0

Something just won't let me give it 5☆. Lauren is a great writer, I admit that, but something was really missing in this book. Other than it, this was a pretty interesting and tense story. I liked it ♡

stuckinafictionaluniverse's review against another edition

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1.0

My theme for February was to read books by authors I have enjoyed in the past and see if I still enjoy the rest of their work. There were a few hits - [a:Marie Lu|4342215|Marie Lu|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1285032806p2/4342215.jpg] and [a:Holly Black|25422|Holly Black|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1589911274p2/25422.jpg] seemed to be at the top of their game - and misses - [a:Courtney Summers|1487748|Courtney Summers|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1589039294p2/1487748.jpg], [a:Ruta Sepetys|3407448|Ruta Sepetys|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1344869981p2/3407448.jpg], [a:Melina Marchetta|47104|Melina Marchetta|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1277655889p2/47104.jpg] (Sorry, I still love you all!)

Panic falls in a completely different category, named Why on earth did I pick this up? I’ve given this author two, three, four chances.. why do I keep going back to her books? This was the last straw. I thoroughly enjoyed Oliver’s debut [b:Before I Fall|6482837|Before I Fall|Lauren Oliver|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1361044695l/6482837._SY75_.jpg|6674135], disliked the first two books in the Delirium series but figured this would be fun. Now I wonder if my sixth sense was on vacation that day.

There is an extremely slow-moving plot where unnecessary drama gets in the way. There’s ridiculous insta-love, and poorly developed relationships. There are frustrating characters with very little personality. Dodge ruined the whole story from me, he slapped the reader in the face with his insta-love and cringe-worthy inner monologue. Heather shifted from pale and uninteresting to a character with a strong backstory. There’s so much wasted potential here.

The whole book felt vague, and it was difficult to picture it in my head. The game itself was a little silly and confusing. It was oddly plotted, and we found out rather essential character background in the last 25% of the book.

And lastly, the writing. There are some truly awful passages here, and every chapter made me cringe. Could this really be by the same author who wrote Before I fall, the tender and realistic novel that was such an emotional journey to read? With writing that had a natural flow and wasn’t too flowery but effective. Even Delirium had its moments. Panic on the other hand, drove me crazy with its metaphors, and many passages are just… way too weird for me. I can’t tell whether it was supposed to be comical or poetic. Either way, I loathed it.

It seemed somehow surprising that Nat Velez, with her thick, perfect hair and slicked lip-gloss lips, would speak so frankly about a subject most people avoided. It was like hearing a supermodel fart: surprising and kind of thrilling.

Um… TMI much?

Her hair was fixed low, in a side ponytail, and she was wearing a ruffled yellow jumper-type thing, with the shirt and shorts attached, that would have looked stupid on someone else. But on her it looked amazing, like she was some kind of life-size, exotic Popsicle.

LIFE-SIZE. EXOTIC. POPSICLE. I refuse to even comment on this.

(..)A two-story structure, all dark, that might have been nice one hundred years ago. Now it looked like a person whose soul had been sucked out through his asshole.

Thank you for the imagery, Lauren Oliver.

To top it all off, the third person past tense disturbed me and made the characters very distant.
Unless I feel masochistic and pick up the conclusion to the Delirium series, this is the final book I will read by Oliver.

harleyrae's review against another edition

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4.0

I'm surprised I enjoyed this as much as I did. I actually really enjoyed this. I felt there was something's that could have been done better but all around I did enjoy it.

Panic is a game where only graduated seniors can play. And the winner of the game walks with 50000-60000, and in a small town like carp everyone wants to win. But panic is like most games, in this game you must face your worst fears without chickening out. The games can be dangerous and one slip can mean death. But for Heather and Dodge they are willing to risk it.

One thing I didn't like was the duel perspectives, I really wish the whole book followed one person. I think we would have been able to better connect with the characters.
I also wish we spent more time on the challenges. Considering the book is mainly about this game called panic I felt we spent very little time actually on the game itself.


All in all I did enjoy this book and would recommend it to anyone wanting an exciting contemporary read.

leafblade's review against another edition

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2.0

Ultimately stupid, too convenient and really unrealistic. The characters were flat stereotypes and the ending was predictable.

laurevannieuwenhove's review against another edition

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2.0

Predictable. Nothing special.