Pandemonium ~ Lauren Oliver (arc) review

Pandemonium (Delirium #2)
Harper Teen
February 28, 2012
384 pages
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It's pretty much impossible to keep this spoiler free for Delirium so if you have not yet read that (Pandemonium is the sequel), check out my review here or on Amazon - it is one my favorites.

Now, only keep reading if you enjoy spoileryness for Delirium!

Lena doesn't know where she is. Lena has escaped. At least that's what she remembers. But when she wakes up in a room with a woman or a girl hovering over her with no memory of how she got there, Lena isn't completely sure what's happened. All she knows is that Alex isn't with her.

Soon, Lena learns that she has made it to a new life, in what she used to call the Wilds. It's not going to be an easy life, but then, Lena never expected it to be. Here she is a new person, the old Lena is gone, is dead. Her old life is dead. Just like Alex. She has to push thoughts of him, of her old life away to go on.


Pandemonium is told from alternating points in time: 'Now' (which is the present for Lena) and 'Then' (which picks up at the end of Delirium). We get thrown into the middle of the 'Now,' not knowing exactly why Lena is there or doing what she is doing. It's a bit confusing - not really in a bad way - and learn more and more about what she's doing and why as both the 'Now' and 'Then' timelines progress. Which is why putting really any of it in the synopsis would be spoilery and no fun.

In Delirium we got to hear from the outside, mostly, what Invalids were like but in Pandemonium we get to really see people who are uncured and how they have to live. We get to see the other side of Delirium's society. All that they have to do just to get supplies and food, to survive the cold weather, readers and Lena finally see.

We also get to see who Lena really is. In the 'Now' that can't really be explained because it would spoil it for you, we get to learn a lot about how Lena has changed and see who she is, no matter what side of the fence she is on. And whether being cured or not, 'Invalid' or not really affects how you care about someone.

You don't always see it right away, but Pandemonium, does a brilliant job carrying over - and expanding - a lot of the same themes that Delirium had.

The ending was a bit predictable but character wise I thought what led up to it made a lot of sense and it also left me itching to read book three!

(Pandemonium is so much harder to review than Delirium because so much of the great stuff is later on in the book/would be spoilery to mention!)



Rating: 10/10

huge thank you to Harper for my arc for review