Pandemonium (Delirium #2) by Lauren Oliver

Contains spoilers from Bk 1, Delirium

Pandemonium

Author: Lauren Oliver

Publisher:  HarperCollins

Publication Date:  February 28th 2012

From Goodreads:

I'm pushing aside of the memory of my nightmare,

pushing aside thoughts of Alex,

pushing aside thoughts of Hana and my old school,

push,

xpush,

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.

----------------------

I was really excited to read Pandemonium especially with the way Delirium ended. Gahh! I hate cliff hangers.  

Pandemonium begins right where Delirium ended with Lena hauling ass into the wilds and crawling her way further and further away from Alex and her old life.   Pandemonium is written differently then Delirium in that each chapter is alternates between Then and Now.  I didn't think it hindered the flow of the story at all.  I think that it made for a faster read, and without it it the pace would have been a lot slower.  The pace is one of the best things about Pandemonium.  There is action, o'yeah. Plenty of action, it's one of the things that Delirium needed.  

There is also new characters introduced that I love.  They bring a different element and the opportunity for more story building.  Not only do we get more characters but also get to know 'the Wilds' more.  We only catch glimpses of how things work in 'the Wilds' in Delirium but in Pandemonium we fully understand the hardships of the people living there.  I enjoyed reading how they survived.

With that all being said, I didn't enjoy Pandemonium as much as Delirium.  I just didn't like where Ms. Oliver took the story. Somethings aren't necessary for a solid good story and she went in the direction that I don't enjoy so much in YA. I really don't want to say because it might be considered a spoiler and I don't want to piss someone off, but I was really disappointed with it.  

There are many aspects in a book that make it great, the combination of both awesome characters and great storytelling. For me the characters were there, I just was let down by the storytelling. To clarify it's really with the last half of the story.  AND we get another cliffhanger. Whatever!

Despite being let down with Pandemonium, it did have it's awesome moments so I will be continuing with the series. That damn cliffhanger got me again.

Goodreads Rating:  3 Stars