REVIEW: Pandemonium by Lauren Oliver

Pandemonium (Delirium #2) by Lauren Oliver
Publication Date: February 28, 2012
Publisher: Harper Teen
Source: Book Purchased by Reviewer
Buy it at: Amazon, Barnes and Noble, IndieBound

My rating: 5 out of 5 stars

Summary (from Goodreads):

I'm pushing aside
the memory of my nightmare,
pushing aside thoughts of Alex,
pushing aside thoughts o 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.

I have to say that I ABSOLUTLY LOOOOVED this book!!! This series is my first intro to Lauren Oliver and I definitely love her as a writer now…I'm a fan, you got me!

With this book we saw the best version of Lena. She has changed so much from the naïve young girl she was in Delirium to the strong and brave girl in Pandemonium that is willing to do whatever she needs to do to survive. Seeing her change in attitude from the “Then” and “Now” chapters the book breaks into really gives her so much more credibility when you consider how much she’s grown through all of the struggles and loss she’s endured. Normally I hate this kind of switch in books, but Lauren Oliver does a great job at keeping the pace up and definitely handled the transitions very well. Though I must admit my preference was with the “Now”

After what happened in Delirium with Alex, I thought it would be so difficult to ever find another love for Lena. I mean, how could we ever move on from Alex? He was the love of her life in a world where love wasn’t “allowed” needless to say I was heartbroken… but then we meet Julian. At first I'm a little skeptical about it because my love for Alex was so strong. But Julian won my heart over instantly. Though naïve, Julian was so brave and strong in everything he did. Running away to the wilds with Lena was not as traumatic as it could’ve been because he was already used to doing the extreme with his family. My heart definitely melted for Julian in a way that I did NOT expect.

I think that comparing the love Lena and Alex had  to the one Lena and Julian had is a bit unfair because both relationships are both so unique and genuine. That being said…umm, Team Julian? Team Alex? I'm STILL torn!!! I’ll keep you posted on that…

And then there’s the ending…I'm still in a complete tizzy over it!!! There are so many ways this story can end and I'm not 100% sure what I want to happen at this point. Well…I kind of am, but Lauren Oliver certainly knows how to throw a curve ball so I won’t be getting too attached to my ideas just yet…

REVIEW: Requiem by Lauren Oliver

Requiem (Delirium #3) by Lauren Oliver
Publication Date: March 5, 2013
Publisher: HarperCollins Children's Books
Source: Book Purchased by Reviewer
Buy it at: Amazon, Barnes and Noble, IndieBound

My rating: 4 out of 5 stars

Summary (from Goodreads):

They have tried to squeeze us out, to stamp us into the past.

But we are still here.

And there are more of us every day.

Now an active member of the resistance, Lena has been transformed. The nascent rebellion that was under way in Pandemonium has ignited into an all-out revolution in Requiem, and Lena is at the center of the fight.

After rescuing Julian from a death sentence, Lena and her friends fled to the Wilds. But the Wilds are no longer a safe haven—pockets of rebellion have opened throughout the country, and the government cannot deny the existence of Invalids. Regulators now infiltrate the borderlands to stamp out the rebels, and as Lena navigates the increasingly dangerous terrain, her best friend, Hana, lives a safe, loveless life in Portland as the fiancée of the young mayor.

Maybe we are driven crazy by our feelings.

Maybe love is a disease, and we would be better off without it.

But we have chosen a different road.

And in the end, that is the point of escaping the cure: We are free to choose.

We are even free to choose the wrong thing.

Requiem is told from both Lena’s and Hana’s points of view. The two girls live side by side in a world that divides them until, at last, their stories converge.

This book… ::Sigh::… THIS BOOK! It’s definitely been a roller coaster ride of emotions for me…to say the LEAST! After my dear friend Jenn recommended the first book in the series, Delirium, I was captured by its powerful story and plot…hook, line and sinker!

The second book, Pandemonium, was just as emotional as the first and last books, but had me feeling a sense of happiness throughout the book because of all that had unfolded. Then the end throws us for the shocker and that’s where we begin with this book.

I’ve been thinking about how this series could end and I have to say is…I was NOT impressed. I had several scenarios unfolding in my head and Lauren Oliver did not use ANY of them. I mean, hello?! I worked hard on this ending,…she should have too! Right?!

Oliver took this story and took it on a totally different level. And that’s not to say that the writing wasn’t good, because it was! And the story wasn’t bad…it just was so far off from what I had hoped it would be that it left me yearning for more. The ending was left so open and incomplete that I feel like I never got the closure I needed. Whether I approved of Lena’s decision in boyfriends it didn’t matter. I just needed that closure and Oliver highly disappointed me on this level. You can’t have a story centering on the idea that love is a disease and detailing all of the struggles that occur from the people who support the cure and people who didn’t support the cure, then completely ignore the fact that behind all the fighting and death and war there was a real love story that never had a happy ending.  I just can’t deal with that…I.JUST.CAN’T!

Then, of all other things to leave unfinished, we never know what happens to Hana. After all that happened with the betrayal,  the bomb, her horrible husband, and the final confrontation between her and Lena, we never even get to see THEIR happy ending.

And finally, Raven, that truly broke my heart. After all Raven has done for Lena and the relationship that unfolded between the two of them. Seeing the kind of strong, brave person that Raven was, Oliver betrayed her character by giving her the ending that she did. Raven definitely didn’t deserve that. She was too strong a person to go down the way she did. Not cool Lauren Oliver…NOT.COOL!

So, though this is definitely one of my favorite series EVER. I have to say that this particular book saddens me in a way that you will never understand.