Pandemonium Review

I have done it!  I have read my first book that is completely unrelated to school or college or Shakespeare or any other class I am taking this semester.  What book, you may ask, has captured my attention from my ever growing pile of chemistry homework?  That is Pandemonium!

Goodreads

For those of you who do not know, Pandemonium by Lauren Oliver is the second book in the trilogy of Delirium.  It follows the life of Lena after she has left Portland, Maine and the cure for the wild's of the North Eastern United States.  It is written in two parts.  There is the "Now" chapters and the "Then" chapters alternating throughout the book.  Each recalls what has happened in her life from the time she first left Portland to her time in New York city working for the Resistance.

Let me first say that this is an amazing book!  Like Delirium I could not put it down if my life depended on it.  (This is probably why I am behind on my homework).  I might even like this book a little better than Delirium because Lena seemed more real.  Maybe this is why I have grown to love her so much.  If you have read Delirium, you know that Lena has gone through a TON of stuff.  Oliver writes Lena's emotions brilliantly and you believe everything that she is doing.  Overall, I think Lena is one of the more developed dystopian heroines.

It can also be said that this book is an eye opener.  It is sad and you cannot help but feel for the people trying to make their lives happy in a world where love is a disease.  Let's face it, love is hard and when you are shunned from society it only gets harder.  There is also the fact that Lena continually brings up Alex which seemed to stab me every single time.  I really liked Alex and missed him in this book.

The one part of the book I had mixed feelings about was the alternating chapters.  I do not always like this because I usually end up liking one point of view over the other.  This makes me want to skip over parts that I know are important (uggg).  I stuck with it though, and without reading the "Then" chapters it would have been difficult to understand the "Now" chapters.

Okay, one last thing before I stop rambling on about how much I loved this book.  Then ending is amazing and horrible at the same time.  It was so kick ass (pardon the language) but I hate how Oliver fell into a classic young adult novel cliche.  I will let you figure out what that cliche is if you haven't read the book but if you have, what did you think about the ending?