Pandemonium (Delirium Trilogy) [Hardcover]

For those of you who have read Delirium and saw how it ended. Yeah... you can't (hopefully) blame me for wanting this book asap.

"Love, the deadliest of all deadly things.
Love, it kills you.
Both when you have it ...
And when you don't."

The first thing you notice when you start reading Pandemonium is the format. Delirium was straight forward, one sided, bog standard story telling. Pandemonium alternates between each chapter. But instead of alternating between different characters, like in most books, it alternated between Lena in two different time zones. These are known as "Then" and "Now". "Then" are the chapters following the events directly after the end of Delirium. "Now" is based several months afterwards, in New York, where Lena is working from the inside to bring down a pro-deliria organisation.
I loved that it was done this way. It just made me want to continue reading. As one chapter ends you want to continue to find out what happens next but, of course, you have to read the alternate chapter before you can. And then it happens again and again ... until you have finished the novel.

This book was full of ACTION, ACTION, ACTION with suspenseful parts in-between. In both time lines, we are following, there is plenty of reason to keep reading. Much more than in Delirium. My favourite chapters were defiantly the ones in the present. They popped up a lot more questions and have much more suspense. Anything that keeps me reading and become distracted (yep I didn't eat dinner) warrants a 5 star.

In the past, we get to meet Raven and a lot of other new characters. It was interesting to see how the invalids live although we didn't get to know them as much as I would have liked. Surrendered to get the plot moving I suppose so not too down heartened. Don't want to spoil the plot too much.

Cue new boy on the scene. Meet Julian. He is the exact opposite of Alex. He wants the cure! Then he meets Lena and things start to change. I feel competition brewing. Unlike Alex, he has the naive likeability factor. You just want to help him out. Sometimes I get a little annoyed when a love triangle is introduced but this one makes me excited to get my hands on the next book.

One thing I didn't like so much was the fact Lena spent a lot of time thinking back to Alex and not acting on it. She believes him to be dead and therefore is slowly trying to get over him and move on. However it would have been nice if she talked about him a bit more with other characters.

OMG! Lauren Oliver you are soooo mean.

Horrible cliff-hanger at the end of Delirium.
Horrible cliff-hanger at the end of Pandemonium.

NOW I HAVE TO WAIT A WHOLE YEAR!!!

This book was amazing, Lauren has outdone herself. I enjoyed reading this so much, the writing just flowed from start to finish.

I had one big question starting this book. Did Alex survive? And a big part of me saying, "please let him be alive". I don't want to say "yay" or "nay" and spoil this book for anyone so I am going to review it without going too much into the storyline.

Pandemonium is written in alternating chapters of 'now' and 'then'. In the 'now', we learn the story of Lena's emergence into the Wilds and how she deals with the struggles and hardships of this new way of life. A better way of life?

Through the 'now', we see Lena working as part of the resistance, and she is about to embark on her first mission.

The ambience of this book is very downbeat throughout. Lena really struggles with her new life in the Wilds and at times, even wonders if she wants to survive. Life is hard in every way and sickness and death are a regular occurrence without access to medical supplies and often, a shortage of food.

There are a lot of new characters and I did lose track of who some of them were but it didn't impede on my following the story. The main characters are well written, identifiable and likeable.

We see a completely different Lena than we did in Delirium. She grows into a much stronger person, in every way, character, mind and body. She is amazing.

The ending of this book is explosive. While the book was suspenseful at times, I really didn't see the ending coming. It is probably the happiest part and my heart was in my mouth. Then it ends on one hell of a cliffhanger.

In Delirium, we see life from one side of the fence, the Cureds. In Pandemonium, we get to see life from the other side, the Invalids. I can't wait to see what Requiem will hold for us.

Thanks to Hodder & Stoughton Publishers for providing a copy of this book for review.

Pandemonium felt like an entirely different book from the first book in this series Delirium. Delirium ended with Lena escaping Portland to go into The Wilds heartbreakingly without Alex after he is captured. Pandemonium is told in alternating chapters beginning with Now, in the present time Lena is in New York City as an undercover member of the resistance scouting for information on the DFA (Delirium Free America,) a pro-cure organisation, to help the resistance discover their plans and bring them down. In the alternative Then chapters we get to go back to where we left Lena in Delirium in The Wilds and follow her journey to see how she ended up where she is today.

In Pandemonium everything has changed completely since Delirium most importantly Lena. At the beginning of the book Lena talks about being reborn in The Wilds and I completely agree with that statement. Lena has evolved completely from the well behaved law abiding citizen she was when we first met her in Delirium and is now strong and hardened after her time in The Wilds. To go along with this new Lena she has a new home in The Wilds and new friends and family too in particular Raven who's like a mother, sister, best friend and mentor all rolled into one for Lena and who I absolutely loved. Like Lena we leave her old life behind the fence and emerge into a new chapter of her life.

Whilst Delirium had a very romantic feel to it Pandemonium is more of a survival story with more action. This was a nice improvement for me as despite loving Delirium I did find it a little slow at times but Lauren Oliver really picks up the pace with this book.

The only thing that I didn't not necessarily not like but which drove me a little bit crazy was the lack of Alex. Alex is presumed dead and this book sees Lena grieve and come to terms with that and slowly move on and discover a new love. This part of the book broke my heart for Alex, for Lena and for what should have been and whilst I liked Lena's new love interest and that surprising twist to the story I couldn't help but think he's not Alex.

Despite the action and suspense this book at its heart remains a beautiful tragic love story this time dealing with lost love. Like all of Lauren Oliver's books Pandemonium is gorgeously written and moving and whilst it's very different to Delirium I enjoyed it just as much. One thing that Delirium and Pandemonium have in common though is that they both have world shattering endings. Just like at the end of Delirium my heart broke all over again leaving me in painful need for the next and final book to this series Requiem. I have no idea where Lauren Oliver's going to take us next after that ending I really don't, but I am excited to find out.