Review | 'Pandemonium'

Pandemonium
Lauren Oliver
375 pg., U.S. hardcover
Harper
4 stars | A-



From Goodreads:

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.

Pandemonium is the sequel to Delirium. If you haven't read Delirium, I recommend you do so before reading the entirety of this review. This review will remain entirely spoiler-free, apart from a subsequent paragraph at the end, which will be marked with a spoiler-warning.

The writing in Pandemonium was not unlike that of its predecessor; dull, slow-paced, and attention-losing. It's the think that I hate most about this series, and what drives me away from them so often. Lauren Oliver does not do a great job, in my opinion, bringing a respective voice and life to her narrator, and that is essential in a book series like this! The books could be truly appealing if the writing just added more flavor and more life to itself, and lifted some of the depression and intensity from a book that deserves happiness and moments of relief. I have troubles getting through these books because her writing will grab me at certain points, but lose me at most others. The thing with Delirium was that I thought Lena was such a great character, but that wasn't linguistically expressed, and I would really appreciate more emotion from all across the board from Lauren Oliver when she's writing this series. I understand Lena's emotions, but they aren't portrayed the way I believe they ought to. I know that this book is obviously Oliver's interpretation of the situation, and my opinion shouldn't universally matter, but I just thought I'd contribute my two cents to that aspect of the novel.

The plot of this book, and of the series, is the highlight for me. It's such a creative world that Lauren Oliver has created, and I really think that it's at the top of my list for favorite worlds and societies created, because she really takes a scenario that every person in history has ever felt and turns it into something that they never should have felt, and there are the people who vie for its integrity, and there are the people who kill those who do the former, and there are the Cureds, the Invalids, and the sympathizers. There are so many interesting sides to this series, and I think they get watered down a bit by Lauren Oliver's boring writing. I appreciate what she already does to inspect certain points of interest in the society, but I wish she did delve more into the government and the propaganda and the rebellion. I know we're seeing most of it from Lena's perspective, but I think that she could get a more diverse outlook on things. As far as structure and arc go, it's definitely there, and obviously the 'then' perspective of Lena's life was meant to provide background exposition for the 'now' perspective, which I wasn't totally against.

The characterization for Pandemonium really just revolves around Lena's growth from being a stick in the mud to a liberated, free girl who's on the run from governmental grasps. I appreciate Lena's character and the fact that Lauren Oliver has paid so much attention to her, but I feel like so many characters go without anything happening to them. For instance, Alex seems to be the character whose sole purpose was to introduce both Lena and the reader to the Wilds and life as a rebel. Julian seems to be the character who introduces Lena and the reader to life inside the people responsible for the Cure, but how people who are important are treated. Raven seems to be the character who shows the reader what life is like in the Wilds firsthand, since Lena is also being introduced to it alongside us. So many of the characters are just plot devices, and that goes unappreciated on my behalf. I hope that we can see a lot more development in the next book.

The third, and final, book in this trilogy, Requiem, is to be released March 2013.


You can watch my video review of Pandemonium here.