I finally got a chance to finish Pandemonium by Lauren Oliver, sequel to Delirium (you can read my review of Delirium here). The length of time it took me to finish this one has nothing to do with the pacing of the book and everything to do with how busy and tired I’ve been!
This is a great sequel. We all know that there are many sequels out there that fall way below the mark. I’ve even written about ones that are so bad they come close to ruining the original. This one continues the story in a fashion that is true to the characters and very suspenseful. She chose to tell the second story non-chronologically which I thought was interesting because Delirium was completely chronological and usually authors use the same style for all the books in a series. However, I was glad she decides this because I think the story would’ve been slower of it hadn’t been for the mystery in the middle of what happened between the “then” and the “now”.
I thought it was really important that Alex died at the ending of Delirium. Yes, it was sad and I miss him as much as you do but here’s why: first of all, I don’t like it when characters are so protected that they become boring. It’s inevitable. If you know a character won’t die it’s not as exciting, your heart isn’t fully in it. We all know about series (cough cough Twilight) where despite all the epic adventure that has unfolded everyone is unscathed and that’s really annoying.
So I was already on high alert going into Pandemoniumafter Delirium because I knew this lady did not mind killing major characters. And here’s the second reason I thought it was so great: the whole book is centered around the question: is love worth it? Is it worth the pain, the highs and lows, the sacrifice? Yes, in Delirium Lena found out what it felt like to fall in love and decided that it is worth it to fight her oppressive government and even risk death in order to have it. But the beautiful parts of love aren’t the things her government keeps their citizens from, it’s the other side of the pendulum swing. The passion is too strong, and would she make the same choices if her lover, the one who showed her love, was gone?
I really think it needed to happen in order for Lena to become a full character and for the story to come full circle. I’m really glad that Lauren Oliver took the story this way and it’s going to be my new standard for judging a series, as long as Requiem, the third book in the series, doesn’t disappoint. March 2013 can’t come fast enough!
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