Pandemonium (Delirium Trilogy)

I really enjoyed going back and forth between the past in the Wilds and the present in NYC.

There were several things about the ending that really frustrated me, and I did not like at all, but hey, this is a trilogy. The second book is required to have major cliffhangers, and especially ones that make you unhappy -- there have to be those resolutions in the last book.

Not a favorite, but I cannot wait for the last book to come out!

Delirium had a great premise and was ably supported by the execution. Pandemonium, in my opinion, was much weaker. I felt that narrative structure greatly diminished the impact of the book and the big plot twist at the end had me rolling my eyes. It was worth a read but was disappointing overall. The series compares favorably with the other dystopian/fantasy ya novels on the market but Pandemonium failed to live up to the promise of Delirium.

I liked the characters and the overall plot. I Hated the language and the moral situations. I wouldn't recommend reading this book. It was so awful, that I stopped reading in the middle of the story.

This book was much better and faster paced than the first! I struggled a little throught the beginning of the first book until about halfway through when it really picked up. Pandemonium was a definite page turner! The main character definitely evolved in this book, much better than the little naive girl she was portrayed as in the first. I can't wait for the 3rd book!

Although this book was pretty good, it doesn't compare to Delirium. I couldn't put Delirium down and i even cried at the end, but Pandemonium is written much differently and lost me at some points. All in all its a good read and the cliff hanger ending is sooo worth reading the book. I would be lying though if i said i wasn't slightly disapointed with it. I have a feeling the next one will be amazing though.I hate that the third book isn't being released for another year.

First Impressions: If you have read my review of Delirium, you know that it was my favorite book of 2011, at least, until I read Pandemonium. In hindsight, I wish I had waited to read it closer to its release date because now I have to wait over a year to find out how the story is going to end. It is going to drive me absolutely insane! But, it was sitting in my To-Read pile calling my name and begging to be read. I couldn't resist, so I picked up the book and immersed myself once again in this crazy world Lauren Oliver created. I also really like the cover art on Pandemonium. I'm not sure if I like it more than the cover art on the first book, but it is still really pretty!

First 50 Pages: Wow! Now here is where I have to give my warning that this review is going to contain some spoilers. This review would be near-to-impossible to write without giving anything away. I'm sorry everyone! I hate spoilers as much as the next person but it has to be done. I'll try to give away as little as possible.

Okay, with that being said, I had predicted that Pandemonium would contain a lot more action then Delirium. I was spot on the money with that! This book is so action packed that it the pages just seemed to fly on by. The book is set up differently than Delirium. The chapters alternate between the past (what Lena encountered after her botched escape into the Wilds) and the present, what is happening to Lena after a certain point in the story. The book begins with the present, a Lena with a fake procedure mark on her neck sitting in a brand new school, in a new regulated city (Manhattan), and a new fake name. Then in the next chapter, we switch to what happened directly after Lena made her escape into the Wilds and how she survived that crazy ordeal without Alex.

Characters & Plot: Lena has completely changed in this story. It is true that the old Lena is basically dead. She is reborn in the Wilds as a strong, kick-butt female character that has what it takes to make it through just about everything. The old Lena that couldn't take care of herself and was scared all of the time is gone. I love the new Lena! She has her moments where she feels like everything will collapse around her, but she pushes through and overcomes her obstacles. Adjusting to live in the Wilds was very difficult for her, and loosing Alex, who she believes is dead, seems like something she just can't get past or is able to deal with. Yet, she finds a way to survive with the help of a few new characters.

Raven, who is the leader. She is the one who nurses Lena back to good health after Raven's make-shift family finds her half-dead in the Wilds near their summer encampment, miles and miles away from Portland where Lena originally entered the Wilds. There is also Blue, who is kind of a daughter to Raven, and Tack, a stern no-nonsense sort of character who doesn't ever really warm-up to Lena. There is also Hunter, a sweet guy who treats Lena with more kindness then most of the other characters in this group. Raven and Blue have very mysterious pasts that nobody seems to want to share with Lena, even though she asks a few times. Their pasts are revealed late into the story, and they are unbelievably heartbreaking!

When we reach the present parts of the story, Lena is working with Raven and Tack undercover in Manhattan, trying to gather as much information as they can about the DFA. These are the people who believe in the Cure and are trying to get younger people to have the Procedure, even if it means risking their lives to be free of love. The head of the DFA has a son named Julian, who at a massive rally in Times Square, Lena is told to keep an eye on no matter what. This is when crap really hits the fan, and Lena and Julian are captured by unknown people.

During their time being held prisoners, for what reason they don't really know, they try to get to know each other. Lena tries to uphold her false identity in front of Julian, but in the end, she tells him everything he knows about her is a lie. Now, Julian is an interesting character. He starts out as believing in the Cure and is very much like how Lena use to be before she met and fell in love with Alex. Julian had tumors in his brain and has undergone a few surgeries over his life and was willing to undergo the Procedure to protect him against love, even though the doctors told him and his family the Procedure would probably kill him. All of this starts to break down while he is being held captive and Julian's true emotions start to pour out. I felt very bad for this character. The story of his life isn't all that it appeared to be.

Lena and Julian do end up escaping and find their way back to Raven and Tack... and even more craziness starts to happen. I don't want to give away any more spoilers. I've spoiled enough. What happens next in this book is high drama, multiple fights for survival, lies being uncovered, and a new love being born. It is all incredibly emotional and Lauren Oliver really outdid herself this time when it comes to her writing. Talk about being able to create suspense! This book is full of it!

Final Thoughts: Excuse me while I yell at Ms. Oliver..... OMG! How could you end the book RIGHT THERE?? Are you trying to give me a heart attack?

Anyway, the book ends with a major, major cliffhanger. Alex makes an appearance on the very last page. He doesn't sound at all happy either, but who can blame him? Say hello to a love triangle about to be born, but we will have to wait until the next book for all of that.

I loved this book. It was better than I could ever hope it would be. It was ten times better than Delirium was and that is quite an accomplishment! I don't even know which boy to root for now! Julian or Alex.... I really don't know! I love each one for different reasons, but I think I would prefer Lena to end up with Alex. There is just something special about him that I can't shake. Oh my... Please, please pick up this book when it is released in March next year! If you haven't read Delirium, do it! You are not going to want to miss out on Pandemonium!

From all the bad reviews I wasn't expecting much... Now, and once you read the book, you will know why I am speechless. I feel like I'm going to puke right now, I just finished the book about a minute ago. Third book, please come out faster... </3
Anyways, this book was a LOT different from the first book. I'd say the first one was better but this book was still very good.

I couldn't stop reading! I agree with another review that said most second books in a trilogy tend to be just "fillers" and while I also was not surprised with some of the revealed secrets, I too welcomed them. I finished the book in about 4 hours, I couldn't break away. Now I'm just sad because I am yet again in search of an awesome page turner like this.

I must say that this is my favorite of the YA dystopia trilogies. The premise hooked me, but the characters were to die for (and I won't spoil it by telling). Didn't want it to end and even though I'm content with the conclusion, I still would like more (please Lauren Oliver, MORE!)

I don't know why I waited so long to read the Delirium trilogy, but I'm glad I finally did, and I didn't have to wait over a year for the next installment to come out. Both Delirium and Pandemonium are outstanding. I highly recommend them to lovers of YA dystopian fiction .

I am not going to get into to much detail. I think all the reviews that gave this book 5 stars is very accurate. I do think that anyone who read Delirium should read Hana, I think it's only available on kindle for 2.99, but it does explain a few things from Delirium. :)

I loved her first book Delirium and found the second book quite disappointing. The storyline was not as throughly developed, the characters didn't feel as real. The story was quite short and jumpy. I was disappointed, everything she built the first book up to be fell apart.

I have been a huge fan of Lauren Oliver since her debut novel, Before I Fall, which remains in my top five favorite works. Because of my high regard for that book, I eagerly blazed through her dystopian novel, Delirium. There were several reasons why I was let down by that book, possibly mostly due to high expectations. It was much slower paced, possibly because it was spread into a trilogy, and I was not as invested in Lena (to me, she was almost too innocent and uncertain) and did not feel very attached to Alex, her love interest. I felt he was too straight of a character, without the many layers and depth that I was used to in Before I Fall.

I bring this up in this review because the second novel in this trilogy, which so often ends up being the "filler" book in many trilogies, surpasses the first in all of these areas and more.

Pandemonium picks up right where Delirium ends in the aftermath of Lena making it to the Wilds, with Alex presumably left behind and killed. This book is composed as a series of flashbacks of her life in the Wilds and her present time as an active part of the Resistance.

This book again showcases Lauren Oliver's gorgeous prose. She writes so beautifully and poignantly in a way I have not seen matched currently. Furthermore, the pacing of this book is much better than the first. We are immediately thrust into the dangerous Wilds and the difficult life that Lena is now adapting. Lena has developed into a much more interesting character, with hardened edges from the terrible tragedies she has experienced and the difficult life she now leads. Then, we are introduced to Julian, the head of the Cured activist group. I immediately was drawn to him in ways that I was never with Alex. Instead of a straightforward protagonist, Julian is multifaceted; a character with depth, feeling, and emotion, who changes with experience and develops meaningful relationships.

I also want to mention that while I was never surprised by any of the secrets revealed during this novel (and there are several), I welcomed all of them. I thought they were well thought out and necessary-- the exact right moves. When I was in my fiction writing class at Stanford, my teacher once told us to trap two very different characters in a place and just see what happens. I imagine that might have been exactly what happened for Julian and Lena.

A gorgeous book, well written and another amazing success for Lauren Oliver. I was unsure if I would read the final book in this series, but now that doubt has completely fled. I eagerly await the thrilling conclusion to this trilogy, and know that Lauren Oliver has an amazing career ahead of her as one of the most promising YA authors to date.

This book was so good! It has kid of a weir distribution at the beginning, but once you understand, it will become one of your favorite books! Only a WARNING: the end will let you breathless, no able for sensible hearts!!

Pandemonium, pretty sums up this book. This book is not like reading the second book in a trilogy but reading the first book in a trilogy. Besides Lena there was no connectivity between the books as it relates to characters.The story with Raven and the homestead was boring. I created no attachment for Raven or Tack or any other characters not even Juilian not even to Lena. She is one of my least favorite heroines throughout the dystopian genre. I still don't see anything great in her, she seems flat, lacking passion for anything but running. I found the first 200 pages boring, took me over a week to read this book, which is unheard of it, it was a chore to finish, but the last word of this book was worth my pain and is the only reason why i will read the third book. Her writing is lacking passion even though there is romance and action it just feels without, like a blurry picture, maybe using a theasurus would help. With all this said, I still have to know whats going to happen, the last page is that much of a cliff hanger.

As I finished Delirium, the prequel to this book, I was completely on edge. I couldn't wait for Pandemonium to come out so that I could find out what happened to Alex and how on earth Lena was going to survive in the Wilds. Was she going to integrate back into society? What she going to join the resistance? What about Hana and Lena's mom? While Pandemonium answers (or attempts to answer) most of these questions, I felt like it was the slightly neglected middle child of the series. It seemed the book was predictable. I couldn't see what was going to happen from the very beginning, but whenever one step was revealed, I could predict the next 10 steps. When I talked to one of my students today who is currently reading Pandemonium, she asked, "Is it even worth reading the rest of the book?" Honestly, yes. Just because you have to get through this book to find out how all the questions we were left with at the end of Delirium are REALLY answered.

I found this book to be quite disappointing, although parts of it are very good. I guess it is just too predictable and too much in the popular formula of the Twilight series, Hunger Games, and the Pretties (Uglies)books. I wanted more.

As a fan of Delirium and Before I Fall, I was expecting a lot from Pandemonium. Unfortunately, I feel it did not deliver. Delirium set up a wonderful storyline and characters that made me very excited for this trilogy. But Pandemonium felt like just a placeholder and no new revelations or risks in the storytelling were taken until the very, very end. There are many unexplained loose ends and I feel slightly insulted as a reader that Lena is "magically" saved several times and quickly at the scenes that should be the most intense. Lena is either very lucky or Lauren Olivier has become lazy in her storytelling. Unlike Delirium, Pandemonium was split into two storylines: essentially the before and the now. At the beginning, I could feel Lena's pain and despair after losing Alex and the description of life in the Wilds was interesting and descriptive. But it went on for too long and didn't go anywhere. **SPOILER ALERT** The end scene of the Wilds where Lena's group meets the Scavengers ends quickly and doesn't explain anything about the ideology of the Scavengers or how the other members of their group were there to rescue them. Where they just hiding watching the Scavengers lay a trap? Doesn't make sense to me and I wish it would have been explained. The other big hole in the story is the set-up of Lena and Julian. It was predictable and planned by the Resistance, but why Lena? Is there something about Lena that Raven and the others knew Julian would fall in love with? Or are we just supposed to assume that any two people locked up together will fall in love? Really? I like Lena and Julian together and I do get them as a couple. I just dislike that the underlying assumption seems to be that of course they would fall in love if they were trapped together. Why would the Resistance put so much effort into the trap based on that? If the Resistance had really known all along that they would fall in love, I would have liked an explanation as to why. Also, there was an exceptional chapter in which Lena is forced to kill a rabbit as a necessary part of survival. Lena's internal struggle with this was put to words eloquently and when she and Julien first escaped their cell, it seems that Lena was careful to not harm the guard if she did not have to. Yet, slightly later she kills a young women and seems not to be emotionally affected at all. Seems incongruent to me and I don't like that she could have so easily killed that young woman after feeling so guilty for killing a rabbit. There are some other inconsistencies in the book that harm the character development and makes this novel feel like it was rushed through to get to the third. Maybe I expected too much from this sequel, but I was disappointed and I hope that the third novel gets the story back on track. The idea behind this book had so much potential and I hate to see it fall flat after a wonderful first book.

One of the other 1-star reviews already gave away the ending. I'll avoid that, but I will say that the ending is what made this a one-star rather than a three-star review for me.

There is very little that is believable in this book, but I am willing to suspend my disbelief for these YA dystopian novels. I know they cater to a certain audience. There is a ton of action, lots of twists and turns (many of them predictable), the love scenes were really well done.

But why the ending? After Delirium, I was upset at the ending because it moved me. It was a great love story. I thought it was brave of the author to leave Delirium's ending the way it was. This ending- just a ploy to appease the YA girl set. Implausible, poorly staged- even the only sentence spoken doesn't make sense coming from that character.

Like some of the other reviewers, I didn't really connect with any of the new characters introduced in this book other than Julian. I did like how Lena developed.

But really, the ending spoiled the whole book for me. YA dystopian trilogy writers- start taking some risks, please. I'm tired of the same-old same-old. I just hope Divergent's sequel doesn't fall into the same trap.

SPOILERS AHEAD!!!!

Like so many other reviewers, Delirium was one of my favorite novels of 2011 and I couldn't wait for 2012 when Pandemonium would come out. Delirium spends the whole novel getting the reader invested in Lena, her transformation, and her falling in love with Alex. The end had me dying for the next book so I could see what happened to Lena and Alex.

Pandemonium opens with Lena escaping in the Wilds, leaving Alex behind, presuming him dead. She stumbles upon a group of the resistance and integrates into their society. Unlike many of the other reviewers, I like the "Then" segments. I thought that it was necessary to show the completion of Lena's transformation from "Zombie" to the hard, practical, strong member of the resistance she becomes. It is also the only time we really see her grieve for Alex.

The "Now" segments follow Lena as she is sent on a mission to follow the prodigal son, Julian, of the Pro-Cure leader. This irked me because there is obviously something going on but Lena doesn't question it or push the matter. I found the fact that her resistance "mentors," Raven and Tack, are a part of a scheme that paid Scavengers to abduct Lena and Julian is ludicrous. I find it hard to believe that they would employ the aid of a faction that is so reviled and hated by the resistance. Plus, Raven and Tack left a great deal up to chance. I found it unbelievable that Lena was able to A) make her way to Julian through the crowds, B) keep track of him once she had found him, C) find him once he had been abducted, and D) manage to make it to him without becoming a casualty herself. I thought it was unnecessary that Raven and Tack kept her in the dark when she could have performed her task so much better with more knowledge. They didn't even have to reveal everything. It could have been "We heard a rumor that Julian would be abducted by the Scavengers at the rally - keep an eye on him" and we could have still had the OMG moment later on when we discover that the resistance paid the Scavengers. And it was irritating that Lena spent so much of the novel passive, helpless, dirty, and/or passed out. We were treated to a few scenes, but I wanted to see more of the fighter she had become!

It was entirely predictable that Lena would fall for Julian. "Oh my God, we're stuck in a room together and I hate you and everything you stand for but your whining and naivete are so attractive that I can't help myself." I didn't connect with Julian at all. I hated that I constantly felt sorry for him because of his father, his brother, his cancer, etc. As a reader, I don't want to pity the male love interest in a novel. I especially didn't connect with his and Lena's "love." She flipped from one extreme to the other so quickly and he just seemed like a horny teenage boy who got to touch a girl for the first time. (BTW, his peeping while she took a shower didn't seem sexy to me, it was creepy.) Everything between them felt forced and contrived. Maybe it was because I was so invested in Lena and Alex's relationship that this book just didn't do it for me.

Now, I don't know about you, but from watching a lot of TV and reading a lot, I KNOW that when a character "dies" - unless you see the person die and then witness them being buried or burned - you can pretty much guarantee that there's a good chance you'll be seeing them again. That for me was predictable and I was not at all surprised when Alex showed up on the last page, interrupting a lovey-dovey moment between Julian and Lena. I am so tired of the teenage love-triangle in YA novels. Just because it worked in Hunger Games doesn't mean it's the best plot direction for this series. While I loved Delirium, and this series had the potential to become the next HG for me, this second book ruined it by forcing a triangle. I feel like this book would have been better without the love-triangle set up.

However, with all that said, I *will* be reading the third book to find out what happens with Lena and Alex and to see if, hopefully, it can redeem the disappointment of this book. :(

How many times can a person get captured and escape? Apparently there is no limit in this book. That is what happens in this book. Lena gets captures, she escapes. Lena gets captures, she escapes. Lena gets captures, she escapes. And so on. She ends-up falling for this new guy Julian. When is all said and done Lena learn a little bit more about her mom, Alex shows up at the end as Julian and Lena kiss ... blah blah blah. people are comparing this to the Hunger Games, I just don't see it. This compares more to the "Matched" Trilogy by Ally Condie or the "Maze Runner" Trilogy by James Dashner.

Chekcout the "Uglies" from Scott Westerfeld, even though is not a trilogy but four books it is also a story about a dystopian society. And let's not forget Divergent by Veronica Roth. I hope her second book in her trilogy does not flop like Oliver's.

Some authors of trilogies have the tragedy of filling the second book in its trilogy with "transitional stuff." A bread come of this, a breadcrumb of that and an attempt to a choking cliffhanger to get you to buy the last installment. I will wait and see if Oliver redeems herself with the last book in this deliriously dizzy trilogy.

First off I'd like to discuss the chapters of this book. Where the last book was written as one solid timeline, this book went back and forth between past and present. Now, I don't really have a problem with that, but I did find myself a tad more interested in the present time; even though some parts of the past were very interesting. That's just my personal preference of liking to read about the current time.
Putting that to the side (that's just me being picky), let's talk about our characters.
Lena got pretty badass in this book. In certain parts. She did some things that I definitely wouldn't have expected to see come from her. Her character hasn't changed so much that it doesn't seem to be the same person, but there's definitely a change in her.

"I am in midair, lunging at her, before I realize I've moved. The knife is in my hand and I am going to drive it straight into her throat, bleed her and gut her and leave her to be picked apart by the animals."

"I am striking without looking, struggling to breathe, and everything is bodies-hardness and enclosure, no way to run, no way to break free-and the slashing of my knife. I hit flesh, and flesh, and then the knife gets wrenched from my hand, wrist twisted until I cry out."

Julian is our new sort of love interest. I knew going into this series that there would be a love triangle just because it came out when all dytopian YA novels centered around love triangles. So far, it's not annoying. I just hope in the next book the entire thing doesn't become centered around this love triangle. I think Julian and Alex are very very similar; which is why Lena fell for Julian in the first place. But now that Alex is back, it's going to get difficult. I feel for Julian though. He has had a tough life growing up and he is really starting to catch feelings for Lena so I really hope he doesn't get hurt.

I'm slightly nervous to see where Alex goes in the next book. That last little bit of the book did not sound like he was very happy to see Lena.

"His eyes-once a sweet, melted brown, like syrup-have hardened. Now they are stony, impenetrable."

Nothing about that really sounds like the old Alex which is scary because I loved Alex. Like, I actually cried when Raven brought him up to taunt Lena. It's understandable that he'd be upset about Lena moving over him and replacing him, but it has been a year and he couldn't expect her to just stay alone forever.

With all of that being said, this series hasn't gone how I thought it would. This book really switched up how I thought things would go. Also, this book packed a lot into it. Since we were getting insight to the past and the present, a lot of information was jam-packed into it. It's kind of aggravating to be reading two action-packed chapters back to back but at different times. Just because as you really get into one side, it switches to the other.

So, where the ending to the first book made me cry because I thought Alex was dead. This made me cry because Alex was back. But also I'm a little nervous to go into the next book because I feel like this is going to make 3 of our main characters to become obsessed with this relationship drama and the plot is going to be brushed to the side (crossing my fingers that this isn't the case).

just when i think i figured lauren oliver out, she proves me wrong. absolutely loved this one, and its end!! although i'm not sure liked the "then " part.
How Lauren described the wilds, was pretty amazing, i loved every word of it, although i didn't like being transmitted to new york whenever i dive into the wilds.
but i really loved how Lena had grown up and become more tough , and how she and Julian interacted at first kept me on edge, but i couldn't help comparing him to Alex.
And god the ending! what a cliffhanger ! it got me open-mouthed; i just had to start book 3 right here and right now.

When Lena finds herself trying to survive the wilds, after seeing Alex in at the fences when they were running away, could she get over it and enjoy her freedom at the wilds?
.................

“Grief is like sinking, like being buried. I am in water the tawny color of kicked-up dirt. Every breath is full of choking. There is nothing to hold on to, no sides, no way to claw myself up. There is nothing to do but let go.

Let go. Feel the weight all around you, feel the squeezing of your lungs, the slow, low pressure. Let yourself go deeper. There is nothing but bottom. There is nothing but the taste of metal, and the echoes of old things, and days that look like darkness.”

**DO NOT READ IF YOU HAVE NOT YET COMPLETED DELIRIUM by LAUREN OLIVER**

So naturally as soon as I finished reading Delirium the first thing I did was go and download Pandemonium, it's sequel. This book by Lauren Oliver continues the story of Lena after her escape into the Wilds. Lena has to learn to leave her past behind her and create a new identity and a new life for herself as an Invalid.

Although at times I found myself a bit bored (the writing was quite slow) the story overall is riveting and keeps you turning the pages! The book is told in alternating chapter of "then" (when Lena first arrived in the Wilds) and "now" (Lena's present life as a part of the Resistance).

Once again I will mention the beautiful prose that Lauren Oliver uses allowing the book to truly captivate the reader and delve them into this dystopian universe. I have to say that I was never truly surprised by any of the events that unfolded, and I felt as if I was waiting for them to happen throughout the entire book (not trying to give away any spoilers here!) With that said, however, I think that Oliver did a wonderful job of continuing this series.

...and now onto read the final book in the series!

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Dannielle Hardenstine

Overall

Performance

Story

"great series!"

What made the experience of listening to Pandemonium the most enjoyable?

Sarah Drew brings a great soul to each character

Who was your favorite character and why?

Hunter, he's hilarious.

Which character – as performed by Sarah Drew – was your favorite?

Alex & Hunter!

Did you have an extreme reaction to this book? Did it make you laugh or cry?

I did laugh, for sure!

Any additional comments?

Don't be deterred by the young adult rating. I'm almost 29 and love this series.

” Safe. Safe. Safe. You’re safe now.”

We left off with Lena in the Wilds. Alone. Alex seemingly caught, possibly dead. And this is where we pick up.

“The flip side of freedom is this: When you’re completely free, you’re also completely on your own.”

Then
Lena finds herself in a room being nursed back to health in a community of Invalids in the Wilds. Her caretaker, and the one who found her, Raven appears to be like the mother hen here. Lena is slow to become part of her new world. She is weak from being sick and left alone in the wilds for so long and isn’t able to do the hard labor required to be helpful. Then she is just scared to. She really is struggling with this new place but holding on with her thoughts of what Alex would want. She has to make a choice: work hard or get out. She then becomes determined to help with everything. She gets stronger; picks up running again. She learns more of the resistance, working against the cure and eventually becomes part of it.

“That’s the thing: We didn’t really care. A world without love is also a world without stakes.”

Now
We see Lena, living in New York and pretended to be cured (fake scar and all), working for the resistance. She is the picture of a perfect citizen attending rallies for the DFA (Deliria-Free America). We see that now the powers that be are more willing to talk about the Invalids and dangers of Deliria, pushing for the cure to be administered even earlier despite possible negative side effects. During a huge rally, her superiors have her on watch of the leader of the DFAs son, Julian. He is the poster boy for the DFA, speaking about his upcoming cure. After protesters break up the rally, Julian and Lena are kidnapped. They have to get past their issues and differences to work together to survive.

“Sometimes I feel like if you just watch things, just sit still and let the world exist in front of you – sometimes I swear that just for a second time freezes and the world pauses in its tilt. Just for a second. And if you somehow found a way to live in that second, then you would live forever.”

I really love how Oliver set this book up. The Then/Now was a little confusing for the first two or three chapters until it works its way through some details but that was sort of intriguing to be honest. It was a nice way to contrast Lena struggling in the Wilds to become strong and fit in and the Lena in the Now who seemingly is so confident and opinionated. It also leaves you to wonder, as you read on, how Lena gets from this place in the Wilds, just surviving, to a place where the resistance seems to be very strong and well organized.

Julian definitely reminded me of the Lena from Delirium. He is innocent and naive but you see little cracks in his faith in the world and system around him. He had a lot of growth through out the book. I really liked him as a character even though I was mad that there wasn’t Alex in this book.

“But you can build a future out of anything. A scrap, a flicker. The desire to go forward, slowly, one foot at a time. You can build an airy city out of ruins.”

If you liked Delirium you should definitely pick up Pandemonium. I thought it was even better than Delirium and thought it moved along at a better pace. Delirium was definitely setting the stage for Pandemonium; it was the backstory. Here we got to see the Wilds, more action and a stronger Lena. The ending was another great cliffhanger and I have no idea what will happen in Requiem but am really looking forward to the conclusion of this little world.

In Pandemonium, we follow Lena in both then and now. After deciding that she doesn't want to get the cure, she has to go undercover during now. She has to pretend to be a student at school and she goes to a huge meeting against the uncureds. She ends up getting caught with the very person that she has been told to keep a close eye on-Julien. Julien is the son of the mastermind behind the no uncureds campaign. He has a sickness, and he was told that he could possibly die if he gets the procedure. Because of who his father is, he decides that it's the right thing to do anyway. After getting caught, Julien and Lena grow pretty close together, though they both have their secrets.

During then, we follow Lena as she tries to find a camp after escaping the city. She ends up in a village where a girl named Raven is in charge. Raven is really strong and she decides to take Lena in as long as she works for it. After something happens in the village, the story goes on as Raven, Lena, and the others escape and try to survive.

Lena really grew on me with this book. In the first book, she revolved as a character a lot. It's even more true with Pandemonium. Lena has changed from the goody-two-shoes who follows the rules into a girl who is willing to do what she needs in order to survive and get by. She is much stronger as well. She no longer relies on Alex, as we have no clue where in the world he is. We can definitely see the change in attitude that Lena has between then and now.

Julien was a great side character. He had quite a background and we found that we definitely shouldn't judge a book by its cover. He was really sweet though he had his reservations. I felt really bad for him because of who his father was. I mean, he got in trouble for reading books! That just shouldn't happen.

Pandemonium was even better than Delirium. It was much more action-packed and it wasn't as sweet and bubbly as the first book was. It was more of an adventurous novel, like most dystopians are. I highly suggest picking it up if you have or haven't read the first one. I also loved how Lauren wrote with both Then and Now. We got to see her a few months later (now) and how she came to find Raven and the crew (then). Plus, the ending was just crazy! I can't wait for Requiem.

In this book we get to know what happened to Lena after she escaped and went to the Wilds. The book is between the present time, which is 18 months after the escape and the past when she got to the Wilds.

I really enjoyed getting to see what happened to her when she got to the Wilds and everything she had to get through, how much she had to adapt, the people she got to know and love. And I really like to know how she got involved with the resistance and wanting to help them.

No spoilers, so I'm not going to get too much into detail here, but I have to say I enjoyed reading more about the past than the present in this book. I was mad with the present Lena more than one time, I felt like she didn't connect with herself at all. I felt like going there and shake her and tell her to wake up. And then there was Julian, how the heck to you connect with someone in a few days like that? I'm sorry, I just didn't get it and still don't get it. It wasn't his fault, I actually liked him as a person, I was mad at HER, not him, the poor kid didn't know better.

We did get to know the government a little better and holly molly, I want to be part of the resistance too.

The Wilds were crazy, it was nothing like I was expecting. I thought we were going to get a small civilized population, but I guess there is a reason it is called the Wilds, it really is Wild. And then we get to meet different kind of invalids? Some crazy ones and some that we didn't even think that existed, that was interesting facts in this book.

The end, was totally cool, that's all I'm going to say. Loved it, perfectly ended. That small sentence? Perfect.

That's all I'm going to say about this book. Not my favorite, I gave a 4 out of 5 stars.

It’s been almost three years since I’ve read DELIRIUM and I remember next to nothing about it. Even reading back through my review of it it’s not really jogging any memories but holy wow, did I love the book. I even gave it a Squeezers rating (my top honor and not bestowed on very many books I read) and that’s saying something. I’m not going to second-guess my younger self but reading PANDEMONIUM, well, it didn’t live up to my review thoughts of DELIRIUM. I’ll say that much.

Where I appeared to love the pretty writing of the first book despite mentioning that some of it was rather superfluous, with PANDEMONIUM I found a lot of it redundant and rather bland. There’s a lot of the triple word thing going on like in the blurb above and it felt it it just served to fill space. There were also a lot of redundant statements. Flipping to a random page in the ARC I read (that I can’t remember where I got it from, it’s been that long, maybe a BEA past or the publisher sent it to me directly considering it’s in pristine condition, and it moved across the country with me), on page 221:

<blockquote>It’s strange to think how close we have been to the valid places, established cities filled with food, clothing, medical supplies; and yet we may as well be in a different universe. The world is bifurcated now, folded cleanly in half like the pitched steep sides of a tent: the Valids and the Invalids live on different planes, in different dimensions.</blockquote>

That paragraph circles back around on itself at least twice, in and of itself a bit redundant. But what made it even harder for me is that these kinds of descriptions regarding the differences between the two worlds, are repeated constantly, using a variance of words. This quote was pulled from the middle of the book. To me that’s something that should have been gotten out of the way within the first third but it keeps getting repeated. I got it. It’s different. Move on.

And Lena? She’s changed. She left the old Lena in the other world. She’ll tell you that repeatedly and with unnecessary flourish. There are a lot of pretty-looking words in this book but they’re not saying a whole hell of a lot.

Things happen all of a sudden, too. A lot. Maybe once every three chapters or so. All of a sudden, something happens. Over and over again. The writing is definitely conflicted. It wants to be pretty and flowery in a good way but it comes off like too much perfume on someone who may need a shower. PANDEMONIUM is definitely a middle book and not a lot happens to really advance the story and I think an attempt was made to hide that under the superfluous writing. I mean Lena’s living in the woods but if they’re not scavenging for food they’re cleaning dishes and watching people get sick. Or walking. There isn’t a lot of plot movement in that half of the book and I think it was meant more to break down Old Lena and rebuild New Lena. Which I’m told over and over again. And then the present story is a hint of action and then stuck in a cell and more pondering of character. So we have maybe an 1/18th of the book going somewhere and the rest of it stuck in Lena’s head.

The world itself wasn’t something that bothered me reading DELIRIUM. I even raved about it. In PANDEMONIUM I had a fair amount of eyebrow-raising. There are a lot of inconsistencies in the application of the lobotomies and it appeared that the Cure was only used when it was convenient to use. The Invalids call the Cured zombies. All of their emotions have been lobotomized away. Yet they panic during an attack. Yet Daddy Cure Movement beats his children for not falling in line. Yet people protest and fight against or for an earlier Cure. I can suspend my disbelief when it comes to the feral children that loveless people would raise in this world (something that wasn’t brought to my attention until after I’d read DELIRIUM) but the application of how people react after they’re cured is inconsistent at best. I get it; there needs to be action and cause in the book but Oliver isn’t being genuine to her own world. If these people are actually zombies, they wouldn’t feel anything. They’d fall in line, exactly like how they were supposed to. There wouldn’t be protests, there wouldn’t be panic and screaming, there wouldn’t be child abuse. I think there were some plot instances used to poke holes in the application of the cure, mainly using Raven and her history and the potential for Cure failure but it doesn’t feel to me that the conspiracy goes that far. I just think it’s a major chink in the world and it really bothered me.

I saw the end coming. It was set up too obviously for anything else to have happened, although the part with the escaped prisoner did surprise me. I’m not going to elaborate because of spoilers but it was a good surprise.

I’m probably going to leave the series here. I just wasn’t impressed with this book. I don’t like how the world is panning out, I’m not enamored with the writing (without re-reading DELIRIUM I can’t tell if the writing actually changed or just I did, although I have read other Oliver books and I liked them enough), Lena’s rather insufferable and is trying to convince herself too much that she’s changed when her actions would have spoken plenty to that (although I guess that leads back to writing). There just wasn’t enough here to keep me going.

2

You guys, I am totally hooked on Lauren Oliver's Delirium series. So intense. So many emotions! Pandemonium begins immediately after the events of Delirium with Lena's daring escape in to the Wilds... without Alex. While Delirium had the whimsy factor, Pandemonium was all about the action... and drama. Pandemonium reminded me of Catching Fire in a way --- the plot lines are similar but the stakes are higher, the revelations, bigger and bolder. Delirium introduces us to Lena but Pandemonium opens us up to so much more of her world and the politics behind it. Basically, they're headed for all out war.

The book is told in two sections, Now and Then and the contrast between past and present is effective in building the tension in the story. It's never confusing or boring and it really highlights the growth of these characters while providing a constant sense of intrigue. And if that's not enough to keep you reading, Oliver's beautiful prose will. True to form, every word has its place, every sentence, its purpose. No word or chapter is wasted. Every page leaves its mark. And this is why I am and will be a forever fan.

One of the most remarkable things about this book is Lena's personal journey and growth. She experiences the aftermath of losing her one and only love and is forced to deal with survivor's guilt. She has to start anew and rebuild her life in the Wilds. And that's another thing I loved, seeing the infamous Wilds. Things are hard for Lena, life there is hard in general. It's not the fantasy world that Lena originally imagined. People suffer and people die. But after spending some time in the Wilds, Lena learns to become a fighter. Her transformation is earnest, believable and not without its share of hardships. She's not handed anything and her friend and savior, Raven, sees to that. Lena earns her place with Raven and the gang and that's really rewarding to see.

I wasn't a huge fan of the romance in Pandemonium, as admittedly, I am a Lena-Alex shipper. Lena and Julian progress slowly, in a very natural sort of way, from overt wariness to gradual friendship then to something more. It's a slow, simmering sort of burn. Don't get me wrong, I understood the development of her feelings for Julian, but that doesn't mean I have to like them. It's interesting that Lena and Julian's relationship mimics the path that Lena and Alex took when they first met, only the roles are very much reversed. Lena is to Julian in Pandemonium what Alex was to Lena in Delirium. Eventually, Julian experiences the same progression that Lena did with concern to delira amor nervosa and he turns out to be a great character. He's one of those people who was initially shaped by his environment but as soon as you take him away from that, he really flourishes. Then there's Lena, who went from this scrappy, lost girl to this kick-butt, hard-edged, self-sufficient woman. She's a fighter. She fights for who she loves, what she believes in and for, well, love itself.

Food for Thought: Pandemonium is everything you could want and love in a series sequel. With serious character growth, amped up stakes and lots of dramatic tension, it had me hooked from the first page. And trust me, you're gonna want to stick around for that ending --- holy cliffhanger, Batman! I think, deep down, I knew it was coming but no amount of preparation could lessen the shock of it. It's a beautiful story and has solidified itself as one of my top book series EVER.

I loved Delirium and I loved Pandemonium just as much, if not more! I enjoyed the "now and then" structure of it. It gave us backstory a bit at a time and let the story of the now keep moving forward and that was an interesting mix.

Everything about Lena's life has turned on edge since she escaped to the Wilds. Her character arc is great as she struggles to adapt to her new world. Life there is so different from everything that she has known before and change is necessary. She becomes strong, physically and mentally, and creates family out of strangers. I love how real the characters are. Some of those in the Wilds have spent most of their lives there. They are fully adapted to the ways and customs of living in a world of survival and chaos. But there are the others that spent much of their lives in the valid cities. No matter what their reasons for escaping into the Wilds may have been, no matter what it was that they were fleeing, it is clear that it is hard to get past the teachings of the valid cities. Those teachings linger even as they form new families and new societies.

The romance factor for Lena takes a new turn and, even now that I have finished, I am still not sure how I feel about it. But there was so much sweetness and humanity about it and that I loved.

There was a lot more action in this book, and I loved it. More than in Delirium, you could really get a sense of the dangers of the Wilds and living in the ways that these people must. It was fascinating!

Things to love...

--The action!
--Lena and her character's growth.
--Julian and how his character changed.

Things I wanted more/less of...

--For most of the book, it was Alex. But then...!

My Recommendation: I love this series and this is a great installment in the series. I gave it 4.5 mugs.

The old Lena is dead. Buried beneath a tree in the wilds. The new Lena has been born into the resistance. She knows what it is to be hungry, to be afraid and sick and also to be free.

Under the guidance of Raven, Lena has learned to bury her past and the boy she once loved. Raven has taught her to be strong and to survive. Raven has become her sister, her mother, her friend.

Then Lena is kidnapped by a violent and radical resistance and held prisoner with the boy who is the face of the DFA youth. Can she save them both or is she destined to have her heart broken yet again?

Pandemonium picks up right after Delirium and details Lena’s flight to freedom in the wilds after the devastating ending of the first novel. Ms Oliver has used a very difficult technique in this novel by running two concurrent time frames throughout. I don’t think I’ve ever read a novel that mastered this as successfully as she has managed to do here. Each scene from ‘then’ is expertly matched and timed with the ‘now’, delivering insight and understanding as and when the story unfolds.

The suspense is superb. Like a roller coaster, Ms Oliver has written in the ebbs and flows, hi’s and lows to perch you on the edge of your seat. The character development takes the series to another level entirely. Lena’s sorrow can be felt bone-deep and her healing is something the reader is forced to journey through with every experience.

The introduction of Julian’s character was a wonderful twist in the series. To me, he is so much more three dimensional than Alex ever was. The whole theme of second chances is healing and endearing too.

But I think the thing that strikes me most about Pandemonium and will have me raving about it to all my friends, is Lauren Oliver’s writing. Her writing - oh wow! Such emotive, lyrical, descriptive, poetic prose. She is the kind of author you preorder books for, no matter the topic because you just know that she’ll transport you completely into another world with her words.

If you liked the Hunger games or any of Maggie Stiefvater’s books, you will simply love this series!

Let’s start this review off by talking about the ending, okay? I can confirm that there is a monster of a cliffhanger. I can also confirm that you’ll wish it was 2013 so you can get your hands on REQUIEM (Book 3). But these are things you should already know. I mean, this is Lauren Oliver, folks. Killer book endings are her specialty. What I wasn’t expecting was the knife wielding, gun packing, face punching, rope making, bitter cold journey I went on in the 373 pages leading up to the end.

This story is told in Lena’s point of view and in alternating time frames. We get to see what happened to Lena immediately preceding the big event at the end of DELIRIUM in the “Then” portion of the book and see where she is now, a year or so later, in the “Now” portion. It’s an interesting way to present the story and it works really well. I found myself anxious to hear how Lena’s story progressed in each time frame.

These two storylines flow at a similar pace. Things start a bit slow, but necessarily so! Readers are introduced to a whole new environment and lots of new characters. Things pick up VERY quickly about half way through and then the action doesn’t stop. EVER. You’ll seriously devour the last half of this book in no time flat. (Take your time through the shower scene, though. It is a thing of beauty and should be enjoyed at a slow pace.)

A have a crazy case of deliria for Lauren’s writing style. She’s one of those people that were simply born to be a writer. Her words dance off the page and land firmly in your imagination. There is a strong social message to be found in the pages of PANDEMONIUM. One we could all benefit from hearing.

Words cannot describe how much I hate these new Kindle audio/video features. You're traveling into this imaginary world the author has skillfully created, just to be violently torn back out by turning to a page that prominently features the author starring at me from a badly lit video screen. I'm in the middle of reading about a place that has no running water, I don't want to be reminded of "digital features" right now! Furthermore, I don't want to see the author or hear her "real-life" voice because I am enjoying her writing voice. It takes me completely out of the story. Am I the only one who feels like that? I tried to figure out how to turn these features off, no luck so far. Frankly I think there should be an option to buy a Kindle version without all that stuff.

It is very, very rare for a sequel to be better than the first book in the series but this was the exception and meant that I loved it. Lauren Oliver answered my prayers because she went into so much more depth with the world she created and didn’t focus solely on the love story between Alex and Lena. This might have been because Alex was kind of dead. I actually found that I missed him the sweet relationship between the pair, but I was glad that Lena didn’t drone on about him and it was done artfully.

The new man in Lena’s life is Julian Fineman, who is the son of the head of DFA (Deliria Free America). He is not really that different from Alex, and again there is the obstacle that they are from different “worlds” that they have to overcome. Not to mention the fact that Lena keeps thinking of Alex when they’re together. Personally I don’t know how I feel about him because I was firmly team Alex in Delirium, and I think I mostly felt sorry for Julian.

Lena herself is so different than she was in Delirium and the way that she describes herself as a whole new Lena wasn’t as cliché as it could have been and this is where Lauren Oliver comes into her element. Her writing was detailed and expressive but it didn’t drag on and had enough dramatic action that the calmer scenes were a chance to breathe. I was on the edge of my seat as Lena struggled to belong to a world where nothing made sense, and the only person who tethered her to it was gone. But not all was lost as she soon made friends and there was hope for her to create a new life for herself.

My one big problem with this book was the alternating chapters of Lena when she was first stranded in the Wilds and the present, because like with all alternating chapters or POVs you always favour one and it takes effort not to skip the other. Especially when they leave you on a cliff-hanger. Especially when that cliff-hanger might result in a death.

Once again this book concludes with a major twist, and it breaks my heart all over again but not for Lena this time… I will obviously be reading the conclusion to the series: Requiem, because it just got really interesting with this cliff-hanger and I cannot wait to see how it plays out.

Posted on: http://enchantedbyya.blogspot.co.uk

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4.25/5 stars!

I can’t say too much about Pandemonium because Spoiler Alert! So, this might be difficult. But then again there might be some spoilers for Delirium, at least.

I really thought it was interesting how it’s told from Lena’s POV of ‘Now’ and ‘Then’. When she first gets to the Wilds and then when she acclimates and what she’s doing now. I really loved seeing her adjusting to life in the Wilds, without Alex and I also loved seeing how strong she is in the present time. So proud! I did feel like she lost a bit of herself in the Wilds, though. Very hardened. But it’s understandable. She never gave up though and does what she needs to do to make it out there. To survive. Now and Then.

We do meet some new characters, obviously. They become Lena’s new family and I loved all of them. They’re all so different and so strong. I really loved Raven. She’s fierce and strong and independent. A true leader. But she can be guarded. She’s very take charge and tries to help everyone but doesn’t take s*** either. Definitely someone you want on your side, I’ve found.

Pandemonium is very political. You learn about organizations and different type of Invalids. Delirium is all about the love and finding out that it’s not a bad thing and Lena’s journey to finding that out. Pandemonium is all about survival and taking sides. Starting an uprising.

The last ‘chapter’ was a whirlwind. Holy friggens, did I fly through it, just wanting to get to the end to see what happens. And guess what? Another cliffhanger! Holy wow, it was crazy! I have no idea what’s going to happen in Requiem. No freaking clue! It’s going to be insane.

At the end of “Delirium,” Lana escaped to the Wilds, but Alex was killed. In its thrilling sequel “Pandemonium,” readers are introduced to a new set of characters and trials/tribulations in this dystopian world where being in love is considered a disease worthy of death. This action-packed, heart stopping page turner will keep readers frantically wanting to know what is going to happen.

After barely making it into the Wilds, Lana is rescued on the verge of death by an Invalid. She learns the ways of the Resistance and establishes a new life for herself in N.Y.C. with a forged identity. While on a surveillance mission for them, she is kidnapped along with Julian, the son of a very high up government leader. Held underground and fearing for their lives, she and Julian learn to rely on each other more than they had planned, despite coming from two different worlds. Despite her feelings for Alex, Lena finds herself falling for Julian. “Pandemonium’s” cliff hanger ending will leave readers clamoring for the final book in the trilogy “Requiem,” due out 2013.

When I read the last page, all I could do was scream “NO WAY!” The genius of Lauren Oliver’s writing makes February 2013 seem so far away. Students in grades 9-12 will also be waiting.

Pandemonium Review

Pandemonium by Lauren Oliver
Delirium Series #2

"Fire in my legs and lungs; fire tearing through every nerve and cell in my body. That's how I am born again, in pain...
I run, and when I can no longer run, I limp, and when I can't do that, I crawl, inch by inch, digging my fingernails into the soil, like a worm sliding across the overgrown surface of this strange new wilderness. I bleed, too, when I am born"
— Lauren Oliver (Pandemonium (Delirium, #2))

I was looking forward to this book for quite a while. I was yet again swept up in the story Delirium began.

Pandemonium is almost the opposite of Delirium. In this story she is on the outside of civilization as an Invalid. She runs from the gory scene that ended Delirium watching Alex die before her eyes and then running into the wild, completely alone in her grief.

Lena runs for a days, lost in her desperation, the feeling of everything she ever loved has been taken from her. She is discovered, nearly dead, by the Invalids in the wild and they nurse her back to health, not back to her old self but as a newer, stronger, braver, hardened version of herself. They become her family. Life on the outside is hard and full of loss. Lena is thrown in with a "uncured" poster boy for the cure, Julian after being kidnapped and they get close. But she is still haunted by her love and loss for Alex. Chaos ensues and you guessed it, they fall in love.

Its a fast paced and it's deeply painful to read Lena's loss of hope. I am such a fan of Lauren Oliver's writing style and this story line I fell in love with after Delirium and now will be counting down the days until her next novel.

Highly recommended!

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Unlike Delirium, Pandemonium is told in two perspectives. There's a then and now. I want to say I haven't read a book with that P.O.V but I probably have. At first I thought it would bother me, but as the chapters went on I grew to enjoy them more and more. Just like Delirium it was still too slow paced for my liking, but when you have a good story and characters you love to read about it can be overlooked.

From kidnapping, falling for someone, death to escaping, a ratman, shock, and life Pandemonium definitely has a bit of it all.

POVs
Then: starts almost where Delirium left off with Lena running, and it takes us through her time beyond the compounds that were once her life. She is now living with the "invalids" in their little homestead. This is where we get to meet a whole new set of characters. These chapter show how they all work together to survive, and when it's time to move from one place to another.

Now: Lena is now sucked back into the world of the cure (She is after all part of a rebellion). She gets the job of watching Julian the son of Thomas Fineman, the founder of the DFA. When things go down at the rally it's up to Lena to figure it out.

CHARACTERS
Lena was back (duh) and I definitely think she has grown up so much from Delirium. She realizes now that what she believed in was only a twisted view of her government. I loved being able to see her be this tough woman in the "Now" chapters trying to save herself and others

Raven wasn't one of my favorite characters. I always thought that she had something she was hiding. I need to get the book that has her short story in it as well as Lenas mothers.

Julian is the son of the founder of the DFA (Deliria Free America) and is set to have his cure done in front of thousands, but on the day of the rally s*** goes down and he ends up underground with Lena. I don't know how I feel about Julian at the moment. I'm still wanting Alex I think. Julian starts off believing everything he's told just like Lena was. He's a pretty big baby if you ask me, but as the story goes on I think he begins to understand that he's been told lie after lie. I wanna say he begins to man up a little, but I don't know. Like I said I'm still on the A Train. (Ha A train get it? Alex Train. Yeah I know.)

ENDING
I can't decide if I want to throw this book like I wanted to with it's first one, or if I want to hug it, love it, and be all giddy. If you've read the books then hopefully you understand what I mean, and if not this is my second attempt to tell you that you need to read it. Don't be like I was and think "Oh, I'll get to it at some point" make it the point to read now. Okay? Okay!

I just finished reading Pandemonium. It is the sequel to Delirium, written by Lauren Oliver. After fleeing from her old life, Lena finds herself in a new life. She must force all the memories of her old life out so that she can push forward with her new life. Will she be able to put the past in the past or will it keep haunting her?

I really enjoyed this book. I may be one of the few here, but I found it and its prequel entertaining. I find that on many levels I can actually connect to Lena’s personality. She’s smart yet cautious. She’s brave yet unsure of herself. I love how witty and suspenseful this book can be.

At first, I felt like I was thrown through loops. It kept going from the present to the past. After I figured out why they were doing it, I understood it better though. This is the only real problem I had with the book honestly. Other than that, it was easy to read and understand. The characters were easy to relate to and fun to read about.

I fully recommend this book. I especially recommend it to all those readers who love dystopian novels. I’m going to suggest that you own the whole trilogy before you read it though. I won’t go into the details why. I wish I owned the third book so I can dive right into it. I will be getting it soon though.

Even though I’ve had this book for months, I only just got to reading it now, and that’s because Lili asked me to read it for the YA trivia scavenger hunt. I as a little late finishing it which was most unfortunate because it was a super quick read. I was able to fall into the world that Oliver created almost seamlessly. I will admit that I was a little thrown because of the flip flop in time, but I was still eager to dive into the story.

As I said, there was this flip flop between the Now Lena who was a part of the resistance who was working hard to stop the “DFA” and the Old Lena who had just escaped Portland. I was a little confused, but once I realized what was happening, it was a really great way to keep the story moving. Rather than go in chronological order, we could see where she wound up and a little bit of how she got there. There were parts that didn’t need to be gone over because there was this nearly two months time span that went from when she escaped to when the camp started to move.

I liked that it was a throwback to how the Native American’s and other cultures had to live during the winters and how they had to migrate to keep warmth and to keep finding food and to survive. I loved that Raven pushed Lena to be the best that she could be and to not be a big baby about leaving Portland. I was somewhat irritated by Lena at the start of the book. Although it was tragic for her to have lost Alex, I was somewhat annoyed by how she just lamented over him rather than take advantage of the life that he gave her.

I was also annoyed by the Instalove. And yes, there was instalove, not the worst case that I have seen by far, but Lena has this whole Stockholm syndrome with Julian after they are taken captive together. I will also admit that we don’t know how long they are together, but they start using the L word, (And I’m being generous) by week 3. For someone who was grieving over Alex for months, the fact that she got over him so fast was incredible. I would say she was more lonely than she was in love. Even when she tried to fight her feelings for Julian by thinking about Alex, it hardly does anything for her. I would hardly want to be in a relationship with Lena because it seems she drops you like a hot cake when someone new talks to her.

I’m interested to see where this is going to go for book 3. There was a lot of dissent and a lot of fighting that was prompted for the next book, but I’m not sure that its going to be enough to tear down the entire Deliria Free world. I’m also interested to see if there is going to be a flash forward like Suzanne Collins did for Katniss, so we could see what type of an impact that she and the rest of the resisters had on the world and the “cure.”

To start this review will contain spoilers so you've been warned. Pandemonium overall was an improvement to Delirium but only marginally so. The story is told in two interchanging parts. The present being about a year after Lena's escape with her on a mission for the resistance in New York with alternating chapters told as flashbacks to her time just after her escape and trying to come to terms with her loses and new life in the wilds. While it was nice to finally see something happening in this story with plenty of action packed in I think it was unnecessary to the over all story. I actually think the alternating story lines would have worked better in the first book and would have built up more suspense if we were getting these flashes of her life in the wilds without Alex leaving the question of what happens to him to be revealed in the ending of the first.

As it is there isn't that much suspense to the flashbacks as obviously she manages to make it out of the wilds and we see the other key characters during the present parts. The main purpose is to show how Lena gets over Alex's death even though it's obvious to the reader that he probably isn't dead and merely being held in that prison that Lena has conveniently decided to ignore as a possibility. They even start talking about prisoners escaping and she doesn't even want to look into it.at.all.

The present part of the story is much more fast paced and I was actually kind of annoyed that it was broken up by the flashback chapters. I actually liked the chemistry between Lena and Julian but I'm kind of annoyed by how their relationship was purposely forced on them. I think had this book only been from the point of view of the present I would have liked it much more. The ending again isn't very suspenseful and I could see everything that was coming from a mile away including the two 'big twists' at the end. I don't know, I can't really recommend these books at this point. There is nothing new here and both are really poor dystopians in the world building department. I'm only really reading the last book to get closure on the story.

I love Lauren Oliver and I loved Delirium, so of course I was beyond excited to read Pandemonium. (Don't ask why it took me so long to get to this, then. Blame... life.) And while Pandemonium is different from Delirium in a lot of ways, I really enjoyed this one, too!

I just reread my review of Delirium, and I talked about how much I loved the slower pacing of the first novel in this series. In some ways, Delirium feels more like a contemporary than a dystopian - which I, as someone who reads contemporary almost exclusively, really appreciated. Taking that into consideration, I should have enjoyed Pandemonium a lot less than Delirium - the pace is a lot faster with a lot more action, and it reads more like a "typical" dystopian novel. I liked it like that, too, though - it felt like a natural transition of the series. So while I enjoyed both novels, I liked them in really different ways.

What hasn't changed in Lauren Oliver's books, though, is her beautiful writing. I don't even know how to describe it. Her writing works well with the slower pace and emotionally-heavy scenes in Before I Fall and Delirium, but it doesn't fall short in the action-packed in Pandemonium, either. The pacing is great, and Lauren Oliver's writing kept me on my toes throughout the novel.

One thing I'm still not sure about is the format. Pandemonium uses alternating chapters, switching back and forth between two times in Lena's life, the Then and the Now. I get that this is used to heighten suspense, and it works - I couldn't turn the pages fast enough to find out what happens in both storylines, especially because the chapters tend to end on cliffhangers. But I still don't think that was necessary. It's confusing at first, and later on, I thought it was kind of strange that there is still a part missing between the end of the Then and the beginning of the Now. I also found it strange to write one book in the series in this format without the others ones using a similar one.

I don't want to give anything away, but I was a little disappointed by the ending. I saw it coming from the very start, and I kept hoping Lauren Oliver would have thought of something less predictable, a more original way to hook readers at the end, but alas.

Despite those smaller issues, I really enjoyed Pandemonium. It's a lot faster-paced than Delirium, which I'm sure worked better for a lot of readers than the slower pace of Delirium. I didn't love Pandemonium quite as much as Delirium, but it was still a great read! Now I just need to get around to reading Requiem...

Oh my goodness, I read this book last month and did not have a chance to write a review for it. Now that I am in New York visiting my family and have more internet access I am trying to catch up on a couple of things.

Pandemonium follows Lena and what happens to her after book one when she escapes into the wild. The book is set up so every other chapter reflects back on what happened to her after she arrives at the wilds and stumbles into the resistance and what is currently going on with her in current time. It flips back and forth and I almost like it. Thought it probably could have just flowed as one story as well.

Lena is much stronger now and part of this thanks to Raven, the leader of the resistance. Not only did Lena have to learn how to live without the comfort of the city but also how to work with others. Thought even after all of that, I still don't really have a clear opinion on Lena. I thought I would like her better in book two then I did in book one but I sort of started to dislike her more when Julian was introduced into their story. Love triangle in a young-adult book you say? Obviously. It's starting to feel like the main ingredient in a recipe.

The character Julian fell a bit flat to me, the attraction between them was flat and felt none existent. Honestly the entire romance felt so forced to me that by the end of the book my head was starting to hurt. I was glad for those few pages of action and Raven totally kicking butt. She was probably my favorite character in the book so far. Yes she is a bit hard around the edges, but there is just something about her that draws me to the character and thus making her way more interesting.

Of course the book ends in another cliffhanger that made me growl a little, because of course... that had to happen. So naturally I am now curious how this is all going to wrap up. Besides those little minor headaches, I am actually enjoying the series as a whole. I find the story-line refreshing and interesting and the secondary characters really add to it for me. Plus when the action happens, it makes me happy. I hope book three will wrap it up nicely thought I am scared to read it...

Team Alex :)

Contains minor spoilers to Pandemonium and Requiem.

Well. This book was majorly depressing and very confusing, especially when it starts out with Lena, our beloved protagonist, the one who risked everything for amor deliria nervosa, the one who struggled on after witnessing so many terrors, sitting...in a Brooklyn classroom, daydreaming about Alex? Lauren Oliver gives us a terrifying cliffhanger at the end of Delirium and this is what happens to Lena after running away from Portland while her beloved is captured?

In fact, that is not what happened. Oliver gives us our much-awaited story in the next chapter, and while I don't much appreciate the story being told in two different time frames and skipping ahead a few months, the past and present eventually merge together into this fascinating, riveting sequel to the bestseller that is Delirium.

This book is perhaps the most depressing of the three books in the trilogy and definitely the most intense. The content of this story makes me wonder, and most of my questions are unfortunately never answered. How can Lena transition from Alex to Julian so quickly? Shouldn't she need more time to heal her broken heart? In Requiem, Lena whines about Alex appearing to not want her anymore. As if this weren't at all her fault. And when things go wrong with Alex, well, Lena just cuddles up with Julian.

Her indecision frustrates me more than you can imagine. I may be rooting for Alex, but reading this book and Requiem makes me just want Lena to choose someone. Anyone.

The content of this book also makes me wonder at the efficiency of the so-called "new Lena." Has she been transformed from an obedient and lawful citizen to a heartbroken but strong lover in Delirium? Undoubtedly, the answer is yes. But that doesn't stop her from being straight-up lied to and in captivity for weeks on end without a solution. Not to mention the fact that the new Lena Haloway is still disgusted by rats,even after escaping the dystopian government so many times.

But Pandemonium had its good parts as well. Oliver continues to write in her trademark poetic fashion, and you can really sort of understand Lena's confusion between Alex and Julian, however frustrating it may be. And you can tell that Lena desperately misses Hana, her best friend. This resonates deeply with me because honestly, I miss Hana as well.

Pandemonium is a story about a fearful girl slowly becoming a reliable, moral young woman. We can all relate to Lena, as we are all breaking out of our own types of cages, may it be stereotypes or bullying or heartbreak. That's why we can all relate to this wonderfully deep, heartbreaking story.

“Live free or die.
Four words. Thirteen letters. Ridges, bumps, swirls under my fingertips.
Another story. We cling tightly to it, and our belief turns it to truth.”
― Lauren Oliver, Pandemonium

Wow, what a vast improvement from the first novel. It is not often that I encounter a sequel so far superior to its predecessor. Lena's character grew from dumb and selfish to fierce and brave. I really enjoyed the layout of the book as well, going back and forth between then and now. Every chapter was an adventure from the past to the future and vice versa.

I was a little grumpy about the whole Julian situation for obvious reasons but I must admit that the relationships in the sequel are dramatically more organic, which made me grudgingly warm up to characters that I was not a fan off. I loved all the open possibilities that I encountered during my reading of this book, and felt that the reveals were well paced. Although some parts of the ending were very predictable in my opinion, the weaving maze of getting to those points lessened the blow of the obvious end results.

Overall if you enjoyed Delirium you will defiantly enjoy this sequel, and if like me Delirium didn't meet your expectations then this books awesomeness will make up quickly for Deliriums shortcomings.

Originally Reviewed At: Mother/Gamer/Writer
Rating: 5 out of 5 Controllers, Crown Rating/Epic Read
Review Source: AUdiobook Purchase
Reviewer: Me

haven't read Delirium - you just need to go do it right now. As in ASAP.

*Slight Spoilers Below*

Having lost the one person she has ever loved, Lena is now living in the Wilds and learning to survive as an outsider, someone who is infected with the horrible disease of love. She forges new relationships with members of the group (almost an entirely new cast of extraordinary characters), and learns a little bit more about herself with each passing day. But when her world is shaken by someone she's not supposed to care about, someone she's supposed to hate, Lena is forced to confront feelings she doesn't want to have or experience ever again.

The best thing about this series is the character development, and in Pandemonium, we experience Lena's tremendous growth from book one to book two. How does one move on from a great and powerful loss? It's not easy, and I think Oliver captured the emotional tidal wave perfectly. As she learns everything anew, Lena begins to come into her own person through the alternating `Now' and `Then' chapters. She's stronger but not without fragility, wiser but not without doubt, and able to speak her mind and/or hold her tongue when necessary. Lena comes alive, birthed right off the pages by Oliver's compelling words. And her story - as you will soon find out by the end - is far from being over.

Overall, if you are looking for a series to go above and beyond expectations, then I highly recommend the Delirium Trilogy. Frankly, it has some one of the most well written cast of characters I have ever had the pleasure of reading. And Lena truly is a heroine who will remain timeless.

3.5 out of 5 stars

“If you’re smart, you care. And if you care, you love.”

Pandemonium is the sequel to Delirium, and the predecessor of Requiem.

Delirium left me feeling erratic emotions including being strangely angry after the conclusion wasn't quite what I wanted to be. Uncharacteristically hoping for a happy ending for Alex and Lena in the Wilds, I found myself disappointed they were separated. In hindsight, I'm somewhat grateful for it because now bruised and battered Lena could no longer use Alex as a crutch. A fan of strong female protagonists, I was happy to see her becoming stronger, even though she was physically and mentally weak.

"Then" Lena was like a newborn kitten needing a mother to nurse her and keep her safe. "Now" Lena was a great contrast, depicting how much stronger she had become after living the square life and suffering great losses. Life wasn't as simple as it once seemed. The cure truly would have made her life more simple, easier to live...if it worked. Thinking about how it never worked for her mother, I wonder if it truly would have worked on her or if her love for Alex would have been too strong.

Raven, the pseudo-mother of the group Lena finds miles away from home, is the greatest asset she ever could have found. Even the brash Tack becomes a monumental help in a rather twisted way. "Now" Lena is stronger and blends herself in New York where she's meant to be following Julian Fineman. After conflict, she finds herself confined with him, the poster boy for the cure. In such close proximity to another male after the loss, I can see how she would need a rebound guy.

Besides Alex she had never been so close with an uncured male, so I didn't find myself surprised when she began having feelings for him. However, I was disappointed. The relationship between Lena and Alex in Delirium won me over. There was so much passion, so much love, albeit forbidden, and the loss of it was sad.

After reading such a passionate relationship, as previously mentioned, I found myself somewhat disenchanted with Lena. She seemed to lose part of herself when she left her home, and it was a part of her I liked. I suspect it's because she had to shed some of her skin like a snake in order to blend in with the rest of the world and to become a functional eighteen year old. Hana's spunk and exuberant personality were sorely missed in this book.

The action scenes were written beautifully, almost making you feel like you could be right there with them. Even when the "now" Lena is in New York with the cured people, you can envision the contrast to today's society including lack of electricity. In real life I can't imagine Times Square not lit up. The prominent Dystopian universe is incredible.

A twist at the end will have your heart thumping out of your chest. I'm looking forward to reading Requiem and genuinely hoping it ends the way I would like it to.

thought Delirium was brilliant, but let me just say that Pandemonium was even better. Action packed without ever a dull moment and the stunning prose that left me once again blown away and suspense that kept my heart racing; this is definitely becoming one of my favourite series I have read this year.

In short: My reaction after finishing

MINDBLOWN.

"If you're smart, you care. And if you care, you love."

Picking up where Lena left off from the first book and split into 'then' and 'now', I loved how this book really offered two sides of the story and highlighted how Lena changed. She experienced life in the Wilds and met new people. Transformed into an almost completely new person, Lena leaves all the comforts of her former home and life behind in order to become part of the resistance movement against 'the cure'. All the secondary characters were likeable for the most part and had their personalities shine through.

To be honest, I don't really know how much I should really give away in this review because there is just so much that happens with twists and action around every corner. I would definitely think that this book reads at a much faster pace than the first novel, and much to its advantage. I found that at the end of every chapter there was a new mystery or element of suspense forming, and at some parts I really did feel like I was at the movies with my heart racing in the middle of a thriller film. In contrast, one aspect of the novel that was the same as Delirium was the beautiful writing style with enough realism to make it relatable to and engaging for its intended audience. It is such a joy to read a novel like this and made my reading experience even better.

*CONCLUSION*

In conclusion, Pandemonium is a seriously addictive and exhilarating sequel in what is so far an amazing series. With twists and turns at every corner and more questions made than answered, there is no doubt that I am highly anticipating reading the final installment: Requiem. Here's to hoping that it lives up to the success of it's predecessors and once again blows me away!

In a world were love is a disease there are many that would rather die than be infected. But like with everything in life there are different opinions and there are also people that would rather die than be cured and lose the ability to love.
Lena was in the first category but after falling in love she would rather die than live a second with the cure. The cure has taken everything away from her, her mother, her family and her lover. Now Lena is ready to fight for what she belives in and for those she loves.
After spending some time in the Wilds Lena wants to join the Resistance against the cure. But when she makes that decision she has no idea about what she is really getting her self in to.
I liked this book. It was interesting to see how Lena has grown from book one and we also get to know new characters. There is a lot more action in this book and even though I liked the beautiful lovestory in the first book I kind of liked this book better with both love and exitement.

[Warning: Some Spoilers!]

A lot more stuff happened in this novel than in its prequel, and for that, I was thankful. A lot of new characters were introduced, and all of them were fairly interesting. Lena was more active in this book, which made her a better protagonist. The freaky, Nazi-reminiscent way the people rallied, brainwashed, behind false ideals made the society seem a lot more realistic than it was in Delirium. We get a better glimpse of the way the government controls the masses and what their plans are for the future.

While this totalitarian US is still a bit unrealistic–I mean, how does the US seal its borders and become completely self-sufficient without any serious economic repercussions?–and the whole “love is a disease” thing remains far-fetched, the issues with the premise this time around were less tangible. I didn’t feel them as much because the book’s plot was more interesting. The action distracted me from the flaws.

I’m hoping to see a completely independent Lena in the final book of this trilogy. In Delirium, she was a brainwashed fool who only slowly came around to realize the truth about her society. In this book, she was able and willing to work with the resistance to gradually destabilize and take the down the government–only problem was, she spent the entire novel being manipulated by the resistance and almost ended up costing Julian his life. In Requiem, I want to see Lena take charge. I can only hope the sudden reappearance of Alex doesn’t make for a book full of love-triangle teen-angst whining. That would totally ruin it for me…

I felt like I had to sit and think about this book for quite awhile. It was a good follow up to Delirium. It was well above how I usually feel for the second, but it had a different feel than the first novel.

I had the most trouble with the different time periods. I'm horrible at reading chapter titles and it took me awhile to get use to how the novel was set up. It felt choppy because I kept wondering how Lena got to be back in society. I knew the story would get to it eventually, it just bugged me for some reason. I think it would have worked just fine in a normal time line. Was Delirium set up the same way? (I honestly can't remember.)

Lena shows some admirable characteristics when meet her in the wild. She's injured, near death, and has lost Alex. I think it's hard for her at first to pick up the pieces, she needs that push. No one in the Wild can shirk his/her duties. I liked that they gave her time to come to terms with what's happened to her, but know when she needs the push to move on. I liked how Lena finds her place in this little band of outsiders. When she finds what she wants to do in this group she pushed for it.
I liked the pacing of the actions while they are infiltrating the city. I like how the don't tell Lena the whole story. I think it was necessary for her to go in blindly even though she doesn't like it in the end. I loved Lena's interactions with Julian. I liked that he was able to see the other side of things. Such a blow to his dad and the people he is connected to. I'm curious as to how this will effect society's view on the "illness".

I was kind of disappointed in the ending. I had been expecting it all along. But, I really wanted it much sooner in the book. I think it's kind of a blow to the storyline and to Lena's character to have it happen on the last pages. It was one of those things that made me think about giving it a lower rating. But, after much consideration, I kept it were I originally had planned.

A worthy addition to the series. Still think it has some characteristics of the Pretty series, but it's beginning to take a life of it's own. I'm looking forward to the next one (and such a long wait it will be).

Pandemonium is Lauren Oliver's sequel to the Delirium series. This book starts right after Lena flees her hometown with Alex to avoid the cure; only to find out that Alex is missing, presumed dead. This book focuses on what life is like in the Wilds and how difficult it is for the people that have fled rather than getting the love sickness cure.

We meet several new people that are essential to Lena's survival in the Wilds such as Tack, Blue, and Raven. We also are introduced to Julian, Lena's "love interest" in the book. There are a few more important people, but I will leave that a surprise for when you read it (if you haven't yet).

The Positives
I really enjoyed this book for a few reasons. First of all, in Delirium you only imagine how the "invalids" act, you are not introduced to them specifically. Instead, you get a picture of them in your mind and you hope that you are not wrong. In Pandemonium you get to experience the "invalids" and the risks that they take living in the Wilds. You learn their system of survival, how they communicate in the town, and how they create relationships that are meaningfuly while they are living in squaller. I appreciated the struggle and I admired those who lived in this way. It make me have a newfound respect for the book/series, one that I did not have when I read the first one.

I really liked how the book showed pieces of time from the past and the present and how they were all mixed together. You really get a sense of not only how Lena learned to survive in the Wilds, but how that helped her accomplish her tasks as an invalid. I found that outline to work in this context.

The Negatives
I say it all the time, sequels of trilogies tend to fall in the middle book syndrome and this is no different. While I get that it is important to read and learn about Lena's new life in the Wilds, how she grew to the strong person we meet at the end of the novel, and how the revolution starts; I do not think that it needed to be its own book. I love how authors these days to "novellas" or short books in between the first and second books, and I feel that she could have shortened this book and made it a novella. I would have liked it more that way.

I was succchhhh an Alex fan in book one, that I hate the fact that she found someone to move on to in this book. I do get that we need a romantic element to this book (especially considering the fact that they are fighting the love cure in the first place) it just seems like she moved on too fast. The love of her life, the one that convinced her to leave her home and change her life just "died" and it just did not seem to take her very long to move on with her life. Kind of insensitive to me, maybe I am biased.

The Verdict

Despite the negatives (all books have them) this series ROCKS if you are a fan of dystopias. You really need to read up on these and get ready....Requiem is out and is ready to roar!! I cannot wait to get my hands on that one and complete my love of this series. Also, she has several little novellas that tie in important characters from their persepectives. Check those out too!!

See this review at [...]

I was so in love with the first book, Delirium! Alex melted my heart with his love and his beautiful words and I was so rooting for them to escape and find a way to be in love, away from the world that believed it to be a disease. Then it ended with an EPIC cliffhanger! Seriously, I was like "WHAT?! NOOOOO, don't leave it there!!" Needless to say, I could not wait to get my hands on this next book, Pandemonium!

At the end of Delirium, Lena finds herself alone in the Wilds after running for her life and losing Alex, who she believes is dead. In this book, the chapters alternate between the 'now', which is where Lena finds herself after a certain amount of time has passed, and 'then' which takes place right where Delirium ends, with Lena entering the Wilds and fighting to survive. I have to say when I first saw this setup I was a little worried it might be confusing, but I didn't feel that way at all while I was reading! It worked really well with the plot and left me on the edge of my seat with each chapter ending, not wanting to put the book down until I found out what was happening in the other time frame. And how Lena has transformed through this book! She becomes this strong girl, so much more so than in Delirium, who is determined to fight to survive for what she believes is right. There was lots of action this time around that kept me hooked and not wanting to put it down! We are introduced to amazing new characters, like Raven and Julian, but I did feel myself missing a couple of the old ones I loved from Delirium. I am hoping they make an appearance in the final book of the trilogy.

I really don't want to say much else on the plot because this is a book you do NOT want anything spoiled before reading. Trust me. But I will say the ending was just as epic a cliffhanger as the first! Once again I found myself saying, 'WHAT?! NOOOOO, don't leave it there!!" And now I want to cry, thinking of the long wait to 2013 and Requiem.

Truly an amazing read and I recommend anyone who hasn't read either book in the series to hurry and pick up a copy of both ASAP!

~Sara @ Forever 17 Books

Unlike Delirium which follows Lena's romance with Alex and her struggles with what she believes about the world she lives and the disease she was taught to fear, Pandemonium chronicles Lena's life among the Invalids and her struggle to fight to keep her feelings felt. Where Lena once felt that the disease was worse than death she now believes the CURE is much worse than she would have ever imagined. Along with a cast of new Invalids friends from the strong and authoritative, Raven, to the quiet and mysterious, Blue. These people Lena was taught to fear and hate accept her better than anyone else she knew in her previous life.

As well as struggling with her new role in life, Lena was face facts that Alex was not going to be there for her while she learned the ropes of the Wilds. She mends her broken heart to the best of her ability with a little help from a new character, Julian.

This book was interesting in the way it was formatted. Instead of having different character perspectives, it would switch back and forth through time. It would tell of Lena's "rebirth", as she put it, in the Wilds and then switched to the present where she was on a mission for the resistance, a band of Invalids who attempt to reform the society of the cured. Along the way is an interesting connection between Lena and Julian which left me feeling a bit uneasy. I was such a big fan of Alex from the first book and was not ready to let go of the Lena-Alex romance.

When I first picked up the book and started reading and realized that Alex wasn't in it, I almost tossed it aside. That would have been an incredibly poor mistake. I am not one to leave things unfinished. Especially not a book series. So I pushed through and went along with the emotional rollercoaster. The book got better and the new cast of characters made for interesting back stories and interactions with Lena. I believe that this book did not fall into the dreaded slump that most sequels do. This one actually powered through and was about the same quality as the first book in the series. Overall, I liked the book and am hard-pressed to start Requiem because I am afraid it will be the end of the series. With fingers crossed that the series doesn't end and two thumbs up for this book, I can safely say that Pandemonium and the Delirium series are a must read.

Review posted on: [...]

This book fluctuates from Lena's perspective Then and Now. Then being the time after the last book ended. Now being Lena's present time. I have to say I enjoyed her Now perspective better, but we really needed the Then perspective to know how she got where she was. We get introduced to new characters. I have some clear favorites, and some that made me so mad. Even Lena frustrated me at times. She's definitely made progress, but she's still not fully come into her own. I think she's got some more growing to do, but this is expected considering the life she's lived up until now. Her world has been turned on its head, and she doesn't know how to deal with it all yet. It's only going to get worse. I really like Julian. I didn't want to. I thought I was completely Team Alex, and I was worried I wouldn't like this book because there may or may not be an Alex in it, but Julian is a keeper. The ending to this book was so much better than the first, even though I saw it coming. I absolutely love the premise behind this Trilogy. Love being a thought of as a disease is a completely unique concept that I haven't seen in another book before. Some big stuff went down in Pandemonium and everyone's life is about to change because of it.. even the cured. It's going to be interesting.

Pandemonium is the second book in the Delirium trilogy. Warning there will be spoilers for Delirium in this review. At the end of Delirium Lena and Alex attempt to escape to The Wilds. Alex sacrifices himself so Lena can escape. Throughout Pandemonium Lena is dealing with Alex's death and adjusting to her new life in The Wilds.

Pandemonium is told from 2 different time frames. And for some reason it works. It almost feels like you are reading 2 different books, and in a way you are. I thought I wouldn't enjoy the altenating time periods. But I enjoyed it a lot. I didn't find it confusing, and was able to keep along with both stories. There are no numbered chapter either. Each chapter is either labeled "Now" or "Then" The Now is what is currently going on in Lena's life, and the Then is what happened when Lena escaped to The Wilds.

The Wilds is definitely interesting. Now I personally would not be able to survive the Wilds. The lack of electricity and running water, immediately turn me off. I admit that I take these luxuries for granted, and this book definitely makes you think about that. The residents that Lena aligns herself with in the Wilds are definitely interesting. My favorite of them is definitely Raven. She is strong and tough as nails, basically a badass.

But my favorite character is someone who is introduced in the "Now" part of the story. His name is Julian. Julian is a cancer survivor who is 18, but has not received the cure yet due to his cancer treatments leaving him a weak body. If he receives the cure, there is a chance that he could die. Julian's father is a political figure, and this puts Julian in the spotlight. Julian is considered to be a role model and leader of his peers and gives the message that if he's not afraid of the cure (even though it could kill him), then no one should. I simply adore Julian. Julian has this innocence about him, that makes him a very likeable. And when Julian meets Lena, just as you saw a change in Delirium when Lena met Alex, you start to see a change in Julian when he meets Lena.

And in the "Then" part of the story you see this grittiness in all of the characters who live in The Wilds. They truly are fighting for not only their lives, but for something that they truly believe in...love. I think that's one of the things I really do like about this series. Love is such a powerful emotion, and you see what these people go through just to not give it up. The conditions they are willing to live in just to stay true to themselves is really inspiring. Also in the "Then" part there are some scenes that really just tug at your heart. One is particular is just written so well that I was tearing up badly and actually had to put the book down for a few minutes to compose myself.

I admire Lena so much. She's so strong and has dealt with so much. But she somehow has the strength to keep going, and she's a good role model for young teens. I enjoyed this book so much. I actually was so into it, that I finished reading it while on a long bus ride to another state. I usually don't read in vehicles, because I get headaches. But I just couldn't put this book down. And the ending of this book just makes you very impatient for the next book in the series.

From my blog On Starships and Dragonwings

In Delirium, the goal was to get out, now in Pandemonium, the goal for Lena is to survive. Pandemonium by Lauren Oliver, the second book in the Delirium trilogy, answers the question "What do you do after escaping the dystopian government?" and the answer seems to be "Just keep running." This fast-paced dystopian YA tells the story of Lena learning how to fight against the government that took everything from her and tries to just keep taking.
As you may recall, I started the Delirium trilogy because the first two books were available on audio from my library, and it's a fairly limited selection ;-). This review is for the second book, Pandemonium, so it will have major spoilers for the first book, so instead you should go check out my review of Delirium here. Now that that's taken care of, let's get down to the good stuff :D

Title: Pandemonium
Author: Lauren Oliver
Length: 10 hours 34 minutes (9 discs)
Genre-ish: Dystopia YA
Rating: ★★★★☆ - mostly epic, ending stumbled

Strengths:
I really liked the Wilds and Resistance setting in Pandemonium better than Lena trying to fit in in Delirium, they just made for a much more interesting story.
Lena has become so much stronger and a much more likable character for me. I think the growth was completely reasonable as well, given what she has gone through.... Yey for kick-butt girls :D.
Given the plot of Pandemonium, we learn a lot more about the world outside of the borders and the Resistance, which was pretty awesome, since it was a bit dreary within in the controlled lands ;-).
Weaknesses:
Delirium and Pandemonium have the same narrator, but she has switched the pronunciation of Hanna... probably to the correct pronunciation, but still, gah!
The female narrator just didn't pull off the male voices very well, making the love interest less appealing to me than I think he would be if I read the books without the annoying voice in my ears....
Pandemonium is actually two story-lines "Then" and "Now" that switch every couple of chapters and don't really have any epic connection that warrants their separation that I could see. I think it would have worked just fine for the story-line to proceed in chronological order....
Wow, that ending was so melodramatic *twitches* I'm so much less excited for Requiem now because of the last few pages of Pandemonium... seriously.... For those of you who have read Pandemonium, I'm sure you know what I'm talking about, and I honestly like the outcome of the ending, but it just felt so ridiculously contrived and "HEY LOOK PLOT TWIST" to me.... Like a Vader is your father moment....
Summary:
Pandemonium is way better than Delirium in my humble opinion ;-) but that could be because of the setting and type of story that interests me (in fact I'm pretty sure that's main reason). That still means that Pandemonium, while having some strange flaws, is awesome and you should keep reading the trilogy and eagerly await Requiem with me even if the ending also makes you go WTF?? I'm just hoping Requiem isn't too much like that ending >.>

So this story continue right where Delirium stops. You follow Lena on her journey to being a stronger person and finding who she really is.

The story is told by alternating between the Now and Then. Then being right after she left Portland and entered the Wilds and everything that happened up until the Now. This shift in time periods is brilliant, it makes everything seem more real. Because in the Then, you get to see her grow from grief and anger, frustration and pain, but in the Now, Lena is already a different person-and yet still growing more.

I loved it! She grew in the first book, Delirium, and now she continues to grow. She is strong, has faced love and love lost, has been starved and dirty and beaten. But she comes out even stronger. I LOVE the character of Lena. I know love, and I know pain from the loss of that love. and I feel it with her.

The world in The Wilds is sad and dirty and scary, and you feel it. you feel the hunger and cold, you feel the sadness, weariness and emptiness they do.

The writing in this book is so believable.

This time, Lena has been tasked with following Julian, the son of the leader of the DFA- Deliria Free America. And you see their relationship grow.

My ONLY issues with it: again, just as in the last book, the romance is very subtle. They care for each other and then love each other, after a very short time. I think it believable that there is a bond, after near death experiences, but love? real love?
I don't know. I felt that she loved Alex (from the first book) more than Julian... she still was mourning his death, after so long...

Man, part of me wants to give this book 5 stars, because of the writing and the character development and... just the whole story, But part of me wants to give it 2 or 3 stars because what I wanted as the reader didnt happen until the VERY LAST page! And I feel sorta... cheated.

I don't know, I am ANXIOUSLY and impatiently awaiting Requiem in March of next year!! (NEXT YEAR?? SOOOOO far away!)

Review written by Mrs Jones at: Theresamjones.blogspot.com

I really didn't know how I could like Pandemonium more than Delirium (read my review of Delirium here), but I did. In Delirium, Lena was still a product of the Society's twisted thinking. She eventually grows and changes, but it is a slow process. In Pandemonium, she is a totally different person. She has been forced to grow up by the events at the end of Delirium. (Plot spoiler for book one): Alex gave his life to save her and she keeps going on, even though she doesn't want to, to honor his sacrifice. (End spoiler).

As much as Pandemonium is action-packed, it is also an emotional thrill ride. I was riding the wave of Lena's emotions right along with her. I felt all of her highs and lamented during her low points. That is the pull of Lauren Oliver's writing: she just draws you in and you feel everything the characters are feeling.

I loved watching Lena grow and change. She morphs from a coddled girl who can't take care of herself to a (sorry to say this, but I have to) Katniss Everdeen-like character who always stands up for herself and does what has to be done to survive.

I loved the plot twists: there were two that I really didn't see coming, and they added a lot of depth to the story. I love how nothing in Lena's world is as it seems. It really keeps you guessing throughout the whole book.

And the ending, oh, the ending. Lauren Oliver, how can you do this to us?! Now I am on pins and needles waiting for book three. I simply cannot live with myself not knowing what will happen!

If you haven't read Lauren Oliver before, I give her a very good recommendation. She is an excellent author, and also is on my very short auto-buy list. She is just that good!

"This is the world we live in, a world of safety and happiness and order, a world without love. A world where children crack their heads on stone fireplaces and nearly gnaw off their tongues and the parents are concerned. Not heartbroken, frantic, desperate. Concerned, as they are when you fail mathematics, as they are when they are late to pay their taxes."

Note: This book was so incredible that I had to change my Delirium rating to a 4 instead of a 5. I loved Delirium, but somehow for me Pandemonium was even better (which is rare for a second book to be better than the first) so I just couldn't give them the same rating)

"In a world without love, this is what people are to each other: values, benefits, and liabilities, numbers and data. We weigh, we quantify, we measure, and the soul is ground to dust."

Wow. I thought Delirium was good, but Pandemonium was so much better. It had everything I want in a book: a great storyline, action, suspense, romance (but not too much, it was just enough,) characters that I was rooting for, and a great writing style.

I wasn't very happy at first when I realized the chapters would alternate between "Then" and "Now": Then being right after she escaped the city of Portland over the fence, and Now being months later where I won't say where she is to avoid spoilers. I thought this format would be really confusing, but it wasn't at all, in fact, I can't imagine it being written any other way. In this format, we find out all the necessary details and nothing more, and Lauren Oliver is able to show instead of telling the reader what happened and the reason for it happening. The "then" and "now" chapters both have suspense at some point, and I really enjoyed that.

I liked Lena a lot more in this book than the last. She has more of a backbone and more conviction in her beliefs as she begins to really see the truth of her former life and realizes all of the lies she has been told. I love all of the "homesteaders." Lauren Oliver really has a gift of creating characters who are likeable even if they must do terrible things at times. That's really all I can say about Pandemonium without spoilers. I started reading these books knowing nothing other than that love was a disease and that there was a cure for it, and that's it, and I am glad I read them that way.

**********SPOILER ALERT**********
THIS NEXT PARAGRAPH HAS A MAJOR SPOILER IN IT

I have to say, I am not as surprised at the very ending as most people may be, because I never believed Alex was dead anyway. At the end of Delirium, when she crosses over the fence and he doesn't and he gets attacked by regulators, I assumed they caught him and would probably beat him and take him to the crypt. It was not until I started Pandemonium that I found out she assumed he was dead and I never really understood why she just assumed that, especially since she knew about and even had visited Ward 6 of the crypt, which is just for that type of "criminal."

I would absolutely recommend Delirium and Pandemonium to everyone. Delirium was slower than Pandemonium, but I understand why it had to be that way. Can't wait to find out what happens in Requiem, I am off to read it right now!

**SPOILER ALERT: Certain elements not revealed in the review of the first book, Delirium, may be revealed here.**

Book two in the Delirium series starts with Lena awakening to a new world. Her life in Portland is over, Alex is gone, and her new family are those she used to know only as the Invalids. She may have escaped her oppressors, but what has she jumped into? Life is hard. Those who live in the free zone (Portlanders call it The Wilds) must rely on the sympathizers on the other side of the fence to send them supplies when they can and make do when they can't. Winter is coming, but as the inhabitants prepare for their yearly trek south, they are attacked by the Cureds with strikes from the air. Many do not make it out alive.

The story alternates between Lena's arrival in the free zone and her work with the resistance in New York City. In New York, she poses as a cured girl living with her sister (Raven) and her sister's husband (Tack). Unbeknownst to Lena, Raven, Tack and a shadowy group called the Scavengers are planning a disruption of an enormous rally put on by the DFA (Deliria-Free America). The DFA believes that everyone, no matter what their age, needs to get the cure procedure, even though it is not safe for those under 18. Thomas Fineman, the founder of the DFA, and his son, Julian, are scheduled to speak at the rally. Through a series of events, Julian and Lena are captured and held by the Scavengers beneath the streets in the old subway tunnels. Julian thinks Lena is cured and Lena hates Julian and all he stands for. How can they build enough trust between them to be able to escape?

Escape they must, and as they find their way back to the "real" world, Lena learns why Julian vehemently wants the cure, even though it most likely will kill him. Julian and Lena slowly form an alliance of sorts which slowly turns into something more. Once they return aboveground, Lena learns that perhaps the differences among the Resistance, the Scavengers and the those who still believe in the Cure aren't quite so black and white as she once thought.

Many sophomore books, even those in a series, can suffer from a lack of excitement because the story has been told; it now has to be topped. Unless the author can inject something new (yet related) into the novel, Book #2 can merely serve as a conduit for information. All it accomplishes is furthering the story. Then, the last book swoops in, has an explosion or two, then wraps the tale up in a shiny bow. No fair to Numero Dos. Happy to say, this is not the case here. Because the protagonist is now in a completely different setting with a new cast of characters, her reactions and beliefs and the way she lives have changed drastically. The author takes great advantage of this by almost creating a story within a story. With a few minor changes, this book could stand on its own.

Loved both books; can't wait until Spring 2013 for the final book, Requiem. "There is no before. There is only now, and what comes next."

4 out of 5 Stars.

Pandemonium by Lauren Oliver was published March 1, 2012 by Harper.

Full review: [...]
My Opinion: I just finished this book and all I can think is: Holy freaking cliffhanger, Batman!!! I kid you not! I haven't been this excited to start the third book in a trilogy in a long time because I HAVE to find out what happens next! I'll try to calm down a little bit and give you my thoughts on this most awesome book.

Lena has made it over the fence and into the Wilds, but unfortunately Alex didn't, and now Lena has to try to find her own way in an unknown and terrifying new world. Near death, she is found by a homesteader, Raven, one of a group of people who live and work together just to survive. There she begins to slowly rebuild her life and find a new purpose.

The chapters switch off between "then" (when she first got to the Wilds and the months following) and "now" (approximately six months after that). Both time periods are interesting and the "then" chapters help us to understand how the "now" chapters came about.

When you're reading a really good book, a story that you enter completely while reading it, and things are going well for the characters, you just know something bad has to happen to them to shake things up. You feel the dread building up inside of you, knowing it will happen but hoping it doesn't, but at the same time anticipation is building because you know when it does it will catapult the story into whole new exciting places, so that when it does happens you just have to cry out loud "Oh my God!" THAT's the moment when you know if the author is a good one or a great one. If you can't turn the pages fast enough at that point to find out where the story is taking you now, then it's a great author, and I can unequivocally state that Lauren Oliver is definitely one of the best!!

If you can't tell yet, I devoured this story in less than 24 hours because I didn't care what was going on around me (yeah, I have to apologize to my kids who kept annoyingly requesting things like food and drink, only to be told "Just 5 more minutes!" Of course, they are kind of used to that by now since this happens a lot with me when I find a really good book :D) and would give it 10 stars if I could! I highly recommend it to lovers of dystopian stories since this is one of the best I've read to date. Since I can't give it 10 stars, I give it a very, very enthusiastic 5 stars!! Now, I have to go bug everyone I know for a copy of Requiem so I can read it right away :D

It was hard for me to like this book. Not because it wasn't good but because of the lack of Alex. The entire time I was grieving his loss while Lena had other things to deal with. This book does turn the trilogy into a love triangle and Oliver makes it difficult not to like Julian. My main problem with this book is related to the direction of the plot. I fell in love with Delirium because of Alex and Lena's relationship and because this book stepped away from that. I didn't want to move on from Alex and in this book Lena has to. Oliver's writing is so entrancing that even though I wanted more Alex it's still a great book.

Full Review: http://www.bookrambles.com/2015/05/pandemonium-delirium-2-by-lauren-oliver.html

Quick & Dirty: Anyone that is a YA Dystopian fan will really enjoy the fast paced sequel that Lauren Oliver has delivered. There is romance, action, and heartbreaking moments throughout the whole book, making it a hard read to put down.

Opening Sentence: Alex and I are lying together on a blanket in the backyard of 37 Brooks.

The Review:

Pandemonium is set in a futuristic United States where love is a horrible disease called the deliria. Everyone is forced by the government to get a procedure done that cures the deliria when they turn 18. Not everyone agrees with the government. The Invalids live outside of the cities and they are against the procedure being done. They believe that people should have a choice on whether or not to get the procedure. Most of them have joined the resistance to try and stop the government. There is also a very radical group called the DFA (Deliria-Free America). They believe that the procedure should be done at a younger age to try and stop deliria outbreaks. They also believe that everyone should have the procedure done even if it will kill you.

The book is told in two different parts -- the present and the past. It starts in the present and Lena is at school in New York City, where she has joined the resistance. She is ordered to join the DFA and keep an eye on Julian Fineman. He is the son of the leader of the DFA. Lena goes to a DFA rally and is kidnapped by scavengers and is held hostage with Julian. While being held captive Julian and Lena get to know each other and they find out they aren't as different as they originally thought.

In the past we follow Lena after she escapes from Portland into the wild. She has no friends, no family, no food and nowhere to go. She left Portland because she did the unthinkable -- she fell in love. They decided that the only way to be together was to leave, but while running away they were separated. She has no idea if he is alive or not but she has to move on and try to survive. She is rescued by an Invalid group and taken to their home base outside of Rochester New Hampshire. We follow the lives of the Invalids and see how Lena adjusts to becoming one.

Lena grows so much through this book. She becomes this amazing character that is strong, confident and can totally kick butt when she needs to. I love that even though she has been really hurt by love in the past she is still willing to be open to idea of new love entering her life. She has developed into this wonderful strong women and she is willing to fight for a cause that she believes in.

Julian is a new character that we are introduced to in Pandemonium. He is determined to get the cure even though it may kill him, but before he gets the procedure done he is kidnapped and meets Lena. He learns that there the Invalids aren't what he thought and he starts to second guess all the things he was raised to believe in. Of course Lena and Julian start to develop feelings for each other. Their romance develops slowing and it is really sweet.

Raven is also a new character introduced in Pandemonium. She is the leader of the invalids at the base Lena goes to in New Hampshire. Ravens story is really heartbreaking, she has lived in the wild for 6 years now and no one really knows why she left home. Being the leader of the Invalids, she feels responsible for all of the people that live there and it is a hard life with lots of loss. She becomes good friends with Lena throughout the book and tries to teach Lena what life is like being an Invalid.

I really enjoyed Pandemonium. At times the going back and forth between the past and present was a little confusing but it all comes together nicely in the end. There is romance, heartbreak, action and a killer cliffhanger ending. I loved the character development in this book and it is beautifully written. If you enjoyed book one in the Delirium series, you will not be disappointed with book 2. It defiantly delivers. I cannot wait for book 3 to come out!!!!

Delirium Series:

0.5 Annabel

1. Delirium

1.5 Hana

2. Pandemonium

2.5 Raven

3. Requiem

FTC Advisory: Harper Collins provided me with a copy of Pandemonium. No goody bags, sponsorships, "material connections," or bribes were exchanged for my review.

More wonderful writing in the Delirium sequel, although some of it not so much.

Interesting ending twists, as with the previous book. I saw some of it coming and was glad to be vindicated, but much of it was still a surprise.
Most details seem quite plausible within the extreme situation
Some of it fell flat, particularly the big last page twist.

There seemed to be two separate storylines - hiding out in the woods and undercover in NYC. I wondered how they were related to each other and if it was a hallucination/dream. Eventually I realized the NYC storyline came after the woods storyline, but Oliver mixed in the chapters earlier - an interesting choice.

At worst, Lena seems like a bit of a generic everygirl. I don't begrudge Lauren Oliver too much for this - she's a smart girl doing serious things; the friendship with Hana and later some folks in the Wilds adds another dimension to her character.

The first book mentioned homosexuals being considered "unnaturals" - this didn't seem particularly bothersome because the government also hated heterosexual love. However, like many other aspects of the setting, that feels more disturbing as the story goes along.

I wondered if/when Lena was going to find another love interest after Alex.

I'm reminded of my camping experience, especially the arduous task of fetching water, although they of course had to do it for real instead of for fun.
The bombing seemed like a realistic peril.

I wasn't surprised that the Scavengers caused trouble. Also, their very existence was an interesting distinction in the anti-government community. The DFA was an interesting distinction in the pro-government community, a more extreme version of an already extreme idea.
I thought Julian would turn out to love Lena. It was interesting how electric their contact was even without kissing. That entailed him seeing the light and realizing how evil his father was (or announcing that to the reader), interesting in and of itself.
I eventually realized something odd was happening with the Scavengers, maybe the government setting them up as a false flag operation, and I was right.
The police raid seemed like a realistic peril, then it turned out it wasn't really a police raid. An interesting rebel tactic - confuse actual police, slip through the cracks of the bureaucracy. Rebels having their own issues seems realistic.
Alex being alive seems like a WTF cheap resurrection of a hero

Pandemonium was a slight let down. I was looking for more information about Lena and Alex, and it was almost completely left out of this book. I was furious with this, and the world brought into frame, was completely different. I was happy for this change and it's probably the best redeeming factor in the book.

This time around, Lauren Oliver decides to go a different route then traditional chapters; she uses a Now - Then setup for the "chapters." At first it took me a bit to get used to the jumping back and forth and trying to catch the small little time lapses between the jumps in the timelines. However, I think this was done rather well. The world in the past when Lena deals with the loss of Alex and moves on slowly as the group of Invalids or Wilds lives everyday life, and is forced to move due to winter and other extraneous factors, mirrored with the hidden lifestyle and the new Lena in the current timeline. I enjoyed it in the end, but I wouldn't do it again in Requiem.

Lauren Oliver does a great job creating a world, the Wilds kept me asking for more. The inner workings of the city-scape wowed me with every turn. I believe that's what Lauren Oliver does best, take the world we see in everyday and pretty much take for granted, and manages to get it down to paper in such a poetic and imaginative way that everyone understand the hustle and bustle of the city. The betrayal and torturous world Lena and Julia were involved in, and the harsh and unforgiving wilds both kept me going, more so than the relationship did this time around.

Lena, her character in this book was hard to discern. I've said this over and over, I HATE LOVE TRIANGLES. Julian I really disliked, and wanted Alex to be the one and only. Julian was too easy, he is just too off. There is something there with Julian that makes him too weak, to unrealistic to be a real character. Lena despite my wishes and desires does go into this love triangle, well I guess you wouldn't call it one cause she is under the impression that Alex is dead, but still... I disliked the relationship between Julian and Lena, it just seemed to... easy I guess. There was something off with it that didn't get me involved or want them to be together.

Overall it was a great book, the book ends in a cliffhanger. Giving Requiem a good base to start on; I can't wait. But... I hate the ending to Pandemonium, for obvious reasons.

I was hesitant to read this after reading a few poor reviews and ratings. I actually liked it better than the first. Normally I don't like when an author changes the format and style of the writing in the middle of a series. This book goes bank and forth between a then (while in the wilds) and a now (a life in NYC.) I really enjoyed it that way. It was more suspenseful and smoother to read. I almost wish the first was written the same way.

This one was also edited better. In Delerium it had really long almost unnecessary descriptive paragraphs. This one was a lot better, I didn't skim nearly as much as the first. I felt I loved the characters more and more as you go along. I found this book better than the first. Usually I liked the 1st book in a series the best and then the last one the least. Oddly this series seems to be doing the opposite for me, So now maybe I will have too high hopes for the last.

****Some Spoiler Below****

Although when Pandemonium starts out I keep wanting the love story from Deliruim to continue. I want so bad for her to return to Alex's "home." But as the story progresses I let that notion go and let myself go where the book takes me, and I loved the ride. Of course ending in a great twist ending!!!

Lauren Oliver has switched things up for us in Pandemonium: every other chapter is written in the present (Now) or in the past (Then), both told from Lena's point-of-view. As soon as I saw this, I was very excited to start reading it. I love when books have multiple narrators, and this kind of felt that way. There was no confusion, you always knew which Lena was talking and what was going on. Doing this, I felt that the story flew without any hesitations - and there were so many emotions: very powerful moments and decisions. Oliver's words have a way of imprinting themselves on your heart... I felt Lena's struggles, not only within herself but with the elements around her too. I ached so much for Alex. I missed him more than I ever thought was possible. Such raw emotions and writing is a rare thing to find in a second book to a series.

Then: We see Lena as she was when she was found in the Wilds. How she survived and the things that she had to learn. This Lena is scared and questioning whether or not she made the right decisions. She's also heartbroken and so lost without Alex. But her thoughts of him are what keep her going, sane and hopeful. Being in the Wilds is scary and tough. Lucky for Lena, she 'found' a good homestead with caring and experienced people that took her in - Raven, Blue, Tack...

Now: We see Lena in the present, a year after she has entered the Wilds. There's a mission that has to be completed and her role is very important and pivotal to the story. This is where we also meet Julian. And there are many other discoveries to be made - there are other people and worlds hiding and living within the system.

At this point, this book, it is so crucial to know everything about Lena... it helps to prepare you for that unpredictable ending! Yes, it is a grand cliff-hanger! But one that I didn't mind at all and loved!

Now, onto Requiem!!!

After a brief break from young adult fiction in the wake of finishing the Divergent trilogy and taking another stab at the Lorien Legacies, I decided to return to the genre with the second installment of the Delirium trilogy by Lauren Oliver, Pandemonium. While Delirium spent a lot of its time setting up a world in which love has nearly been eradicated using a mandatory medical procedure at age eighteen, Pandemonium delves into the lives and tactics of those who have escaped and/or resisted that government. Presumably, the last installment will center around the confrontation between the two but I will have to wait a little longer before I get to Requiem.

In the trilogy’s second installment, the reader flashes back and forth with Lena from the days immediately following her escape from Portland to her work as an active part of the resistance in Manhattan. Initially found by a young woman, not much older than herself, who goes by Raven, Lena is taken into a small community of survivors in the Wilds. After spending some time recovering and learning more about what happened outside of the protected communities, Lena agrees to join several of her new friends in the resistance movement.

For the complete review, please visit my blog:
[...]

OH.MY.GOD.

I have waited too long to read this book! I loved, loved, loved Delirium when I read it, finishing it in only a few days, and this sequel was no exception. Because most series tend to go downhill from book one, I was pleasantly surprised with Pandemonium, but then again, I've loved all of Lauren Oliver's work thus far, so I should never have doubted her.

I'm trying to review this without spoiling either book, which is extremely hard because so much is changed here. Change of setting, cast of characters, plot. Now that Lena's learning more about herself as well as revealing dark secrets about her past, she's still the awesome, fighting, bad-ass girl I was rooting for in book one . . . Even more so in this one.

The love issue was even creepier than before. I remember reading Delirium and easily imagining how our world could turn into that one. It's always scary when such an awful society could actually come to exist, if we developed the technology needed to take the ability to love away. I feel horrible just thinking about it . . . And whenever stories or references to dissenters and those in love pop up in these books, I get incredibly happy and root for all of those who are ready to rebel.

I'm definitely going to continue with this series! . . . I wish I had the next book now. I need to go look up when it's actually scheduled for release, but I'm afraid to see how many months or years I'll have to wait. I need more. Until then, I'll keep raving about this book to my friends and trying to convince everyone to read it.

So, you there. Yeah, you. You should start this series, if you haven't already, or read this sequel. GO.

ALL YOU NEED IS LOVE. 5/5 stars

But it's a dream. Alex is gone. This is the sequel to Delirium, a book which I really loved. The final book, Requiem, is coming out this winter. Pandemonium is divided into two "sections", "Now" and "Then". "Now" is set in New York City, "Then" is in the Wilds, with the uncured people. Just to backtrack, Lena lived in a society who believes that love is a disease. You get an operation when you turn eighteen, but Lena fell in love with this boy named Alex. They tried to escape, but only she got away.

The way the book is organized is a bit confusing; I wasn't quite sure what was going on, though it gets clearer as you read. On page 52, it all became clear: Lena is spying for the resistance in New York City, which was what I thought in the first place.

Lena as a character gets developed a lot more, though Pandemonium is way grimmer than the first book. For example "'You might as well get used to it now,' she says with quiet intensity. 'Everything you were, the life you had, the people you knew...dust.' She shakes her head and says, a little more firmly, 'There is no before. There is only now, and what comes next.'" Or, "I'm pushing aside the memory of my nightmare, pushing aside thoughts of Alex, pushing aside thoughts of 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." (From the back cover and the front flap, respectively). Phew. That is really intense, though I don't know if I would call it deep, stuff. I know it may appeal to some teenage girls, but it kind of annoyed me. I know Lena's gone through a lot, but that doesn't mean she has to get all sappy and over-dramatized.

Nevertheless, Pandemonium is a gripping second book in this trilogy that kept me on my toes and wanting to read more. Some interesting new characters are introduced, and I look forward to reading Requiem, especially since Pandemonium ends on a cliff-hanger, with the inevitable love triangle introduced.

All of my reviews can be read at my blog, novareviews.blogspot.com.

This second installment of the Delirium series takes place both in the wilds and in New York during a resistance movement, moving back and forth in time. The chapters are pretty clear about where you are.

The story starts soon after Lena escapes over the fence and how she survives in the Wilds. I loved the addition of some of the new characters, especially Raven. I have to say, though, that there were a few logistics about their life in the Wilds that drove me crazy, like: Why do they wait until winter's there before they move camps? Why don't they just live somewhere warmer and set up a homestead and try to become self sufficient? Why do they have to rely on the cities for so much? Why, if there is a hardware store nearby, do they only have one shovel? OK, enough of that rant. These are not deal breaker issues, the story was still great, just things that frustrated me.

On the other hand, this time in the Wilds was compelling, the dynamics of the community, the constant peril, the heartbreak of peoples stories...

In contrast, the story alternates in a future time as part of an underground resistance movement in New York. There were some great twists in this part and, again, the addition of some new characters. I liked Julian, the son of the DFA leader, and how he grew and how the alliances and betrayals worked out.

I really love this series, though I didn't like this book as much as Delirium. Oliver's writing is brilliant and absolutely beautiful - she crafts words like an artist. And, I love the premise behind this book - that of a dystopian future where love can be "cured", along with the consequences of that. After the dramatic twist at the end, I can hardly wait to get my hands on Requiem (one of the advantages to coming to a series late!)

Pandemonium is the second book in the Delirium series by Lauren Oliver and continues where Delirium ends. (You may want to skip reading this review if you haven't read the first book to avoid spoilers)

Pandemonium is a thrilling ride which takes us through Lena Haloway's transition into the wilds with the Invalids as well as present time and how she is adapting.

Life for Lena in the wilds is tough, she is still coping with her grief at losing Alex but with the help from Raven she learns to get by, it's a daily struggle to stay healthy, fed and warm but she grows in strength and in courage; she toughens up and lives as they do, she really grew as a character in Pandemonium.

In the present time, Lena has taken on a new identity and is tasked with keeping a close eye on the DFA (Delirium Free America), a group supporting the cure and the leader's son Julian who is 18 years old but hasn't yet been cured of Amor Deliria Nervosa due medical problems he has had in the past; his story was heart breaking.

I loved the bond Lena and Julian shared but I found myself constantly comparing him to Alex who I absolutely adored. Julian had such an innocence about him that I found endearing, he was a sweetheart BUT he still wasn't Alex.

The secondary characters were each developed well, Raven and Tack I especially liked but their betrayal left me squirming and really devastated for Lena.

The setting, characterizations, solid plot and amazing writing kept me absolutely riveted, Ms Oliver delivers a thrilling, gripping story with so many twists and turns that held me captivated.

The ending has left me shocked, my mouth was literally gaping. So many emotions are evoked and I am so so anxious to get hold of the next book, Requiem to find out the outcome.

All in all, Delirium and Pandemonium are complete opposites and I am sure Requiem will be the book that settles everything down and ties it all together. It is an edgy, emotional, complex and thrilling journey we are taken on as Lena discovers not only herself but what she is dealing with in her world. Ms Oliver has certainly impressed me with the amazing story she has weaved.

This is a nice transitioning book of the series, and I am pumped for Requiem! I feel that this book probably had my expectations a bit too high; I was on the waiting list for this book for months. I see promise in this book as it directs us towards the third book in the series, but I feel that this book was just a bridge. I absolutely love Oliver's writing style, and her fluid descriptiveness, and this book displays it very well, just as Delirium did. When I first began reading the book, I thought that the back and forth change of tense would irk me, but surprisingly, I really liked it and though it went very well with how the author was telling the story. The chapterly shifts in time provided a backstory and the result, a practice and a procedure, an experience and an expertise, and an example and an outcome. A good quote from the book that displays this process is:

"Running is a mental sport, more than anything else. You're only as good as your training, and your training is only as good as your thinking." (65)

Through content, plot line and character developments, I would have to say that Delirium is overly superior than Pandemonium, however Pandemonium is still an interesting book. I started to realize where the story was going, which means to me, the ending wasn't as surprising. I really wasn't sold on Julian as either a love interest or likable character as I just seemed to see him as an annoying cripple that needed constant coddling. In contrast towards Lena's strong growing empowerment as a protagonist, I was seeing Julian as a child that had to tag along for the ride. The insta-love between these two characters didn't feel real.

"'There's a place for everything and everyone, you know. That is the mistake they make above. They think that only certain people have a place. Only certain kinds of people belong. The rest is waste. But even waste must have a place. Otherwise it will clog and clot, and rot and fester.'" (240)

On the whole, the plot was interesting enough to keep me easily reading through the book, losing all sense of time, which is always a good thing for me. I enjoyed Lena's empowerment as she learns the ropes of being a part of The Resistance, and the author's writing maintains it's fluid beauty as she takes us through Lena's new world of life after catching Deliria.

First Line: "Alex and I are lying together on a blanket in the backyard of 37 Brooks." (1)
Last Line: ....er... haha... no. No spoilers for you!

-----------
Quotes

"But the old Lena is dead too. I buried her. I left her beyond a fence, behind a wall of smoke and flame." (3)

"The animals are on the other side of the fence: monsters wearing uniforms. They speak softly, and tell lies, and smile as they're slitting your throat." (20)

"the only thing worse than having no friends is being pitied for having no friends." (43)

"A world without love is also a world without stakes." (65)

"Anger is useful only to a certain point. After that, it becomes rage, and rage will make you careless." (299)

"The tunnels may be long, and twisted, and dark; but you are supposed to go through them." (209)

Pandemonium and I have a rocky relationship. It took me like two days to get through 150 pages. Finally, about halfway through the book, things started to pick up, and at least become more interesting, but at the end of the day, I'm still not crazy about the book.

The story switches between two different time periods: "then" (immediately after book two) and "now" (a few months later). At first I didn't really like all the jumping back and forth, but I quickly grew accustomed to it. It is interesting to be able to compare and contrast Lena from then and Lena now, and see how she grows and changes.

I have two big problems with Pandemonium . My first problem is that I feel like nothing happens until the last 50 pages. The first part of the book is just a bunch of travelling, waiting, meeting a few new people, more travelling, clawing through the Wilds, waiting in some sort of underground holding cell, more waiting, a bit of talking... You get the picture. To be blunt: it was boring.

And my next big problem is Julian. The author didn't make me fall in love with him. Somehow Lena did, but I didn't. And honestly, I don't even know why Lena thinks she loves Julian. If you ask me, she only "loves" him due to 1) a lack of options and 2) she so desperately misses Alex and wants that emotional closeness that she's clinging onto the first new guy her age that comes along. I feel like there wasn't even a falling in love phase; Lena just woke up one day and decided she loved Julian. They had like 5 half-mumbled conversations throughout the whole book and suddenly they're in love? Okay, they saved each others' lives once.. but there wasn't that sweet, passionate, slow-brewing romance that we had in Delirium. In Delirium, Lena and Alex had 'moments'. They had cute scenes where they fell in love. They shared poetry, adventure, stories, memories. With Julian, I felt like Lena just shared two nights with him in a prison cell and one night in a bed and then suddenly they were head over heels for each other... Where did that come from?

Pandemonium does end on a huge cliffhanger, but it didn't totally wow me for the sole reason that I saw it coming. It is pretty easy to guess what happens. Although I am really curious to see how the story progresses, I was missing that big *BANG* of an ending because I wasn't shocked or shaken.

Ultimately, Pandemonium felt very much like that second-book-in-a-trilogy filler book. It was all about biding time until we can wrap things up in book three. To be fair, the last quarter of Pandemonium was entertaining--it wasn't boring like the first half was. My main problem with the book is just that I got zero passion from Lena's relationship with Julian, and that was the biggest part of the book.

Following on from Lauren Oliver's fantastic book `Delirium' here one continues with Lena's struggles as she is tested to the limits, as she stands upon the very edge of a knife. The narrative is spectacular, grabbing your attention instantly so that you are unable to put this book down until the very end. Full of drama, suspense and electric tension you will be hard pressed to find anything comparable to this author's extraordinary writing that has impressed me ever since I encountered her work. The heartbreaking, touching and moving story is one that will melt your heart as it pulls you into the saga hence imbedding itself within your mind for all-time. If you are a fan of romance and want to read novels that explore the true meaning of love then I urge you to discover this wonderful trilogy, which does literally touch your soul with its thought-provoking poignancy, candidness and honesty.

Being re-united with the heroine was like coming home, as I delighted in delving once again into Lena's often unpredictable and emotional journey of self-awareness and the inner workings of her heart. The story just gets better and better as there are so many thrills and spills, which capture such feeling and thoughts which are as singular and personal to the author. Due to the author putting herself (metaphorically speaking) into her work and expressing so much, is not only a brave challenge to undertake but which makes this book something great and absorbing to read because of the truth that lies within.

Having read Pandemonium I cannot wait to read `Requiem' the third and final installment within this outstanding trilogy, which is something that shall remain at the very top of my bookshelf and which I cannot enthuse about enough. If you love the Young Adult genre, compelling and beautifully written literature and romance that contains such emotion which is not fabricated but so truth-drawing and stunning then you will love Lauren Oliver's work. If I could rate this book any higher than a five star review I would not hesitate in doing so, for it had me awake into the early hours of the morning with chills running down my spine and a hunger to keep reading that was infectious. I can guarantee that this is a book you will definitely be re-reading time & time again!

I stayed up until 3am finishing this one and can't wait to grab the third in this trilogy.

When we left Lena in Delirium, she had just made it over the fence into the Wilds only to see her love, Alex shot and captured thinking he must have died (because it's torture living with the hope that he is alive), she stumbles on through the night. Pandemonium picks up right where Delirium left off, with poor Lena alone in the Wilds trying to find her way to Alex's camp. She is thankfully rescued by some "Invalids" and discovers that she had traveled quite a way in her delirious state. Slowly, Lena picks up the pieces of herself and finds the strength to keep living as Alex would have wanted. She joins the rebellion and starts surveillance of Julian, the poster child for the DFA, in New York. After a riot at a DFA ally, Lena is captured with Julian and held prisoner. She must fight her way to freedom and finds herself fighting her feelings for Julian as well.

There were plenty of plot twists that left me breathless and flipping forward for more. I love the way Lauren Oliver writes...some of it is like pure poetry. The ending...holy cow...wasn't expecting a couple of those twists at all. Unfortunately, nothing seems to be easy for poor Lena at all and the journey her life takes had me sobbing along with her at some times, and hoping for happiness at others. I can't wait to grab the final installment and see where the new love triangle takes Lena.

I didn't care too much for the first book. This one was much better, though at times predictable. Also, I don't understand how a young girl would be able to survive so many of the things that happen in this book, but I guess that is why it is a fiction book.

The story continues from when Lena enters the Wilds after her devastating ending from Delirium, the first book. She constantly reflects on a year and a half of time going between "Then" and "Now" for chapters in this book. It is pretty cool because it builds up and makes sense for how they connect the two together. In this story we see that Lena is weak and meets new people. She wants to get to know them, one is a girl named "Raven" who seems to be in charge of a group of people in the Wilds. Everyone has jobs that they do. Lena has now undertaken a task of watching a guy named Julian. Julian is a bit of a spokesperson for teenagers and "the cure". He has a list of surgeries that he's dealt with, and getting the cure could be dangerous for him.

While reading this book I already guessed what would happen in the end of it, and when I was right, I was so not surprised! Now I am hoping the third book is better because I am finally getting more into the story.

If you are a parent and are concerned with the content in this book, there is nudity, some lust, a few words of bad words (mainly the s word). There is no sex in it.

Pandemonium leads off exactly where Delirium ends. Lena has made it into the wilds safely and luckily was rescued by a group of invalids who have taken her in. This book alternates from "Then" which takes place when Lena first went into the wilds and "Now" which is when she is living in public pretending to be cured. "Then" tells about Lena learns to survive without Alex in the wilds and adapting to a whole new way of life. "Now" details when she is living in the city and there is talks of a revolution taking place. With twists.

I loved this sequel... loved, loved, loved it. For the first ten-ish chapters, I really wasn't enjoying it mainly due to the reason that I was nearly as devastated by the fact that Alex was gone as Lena was. As Lena talked about being without him my heart was literally breaking, it was so sad and I spent the entire first part of this book crying Once it started to focus more on "Now" I started to enjoy it more as there is a new character introduced, Julien. The only qualm I had about Pandemonium was the alternating chapters. I read this about 4 months ago, so now as I reflect back on the alternating chapters it doesn't bother me as much and I actually liked that part but at the time, it was driving me nuts! I just wanted to focus on one part of the story. Once I got used to that, it was ok but compared to Delirium where it flowed consistently in the same time period it was hard to get used to.

Lena is a different girl in Pandemonium. She is much stronger but is much more depressed. Lena's sadness with Alex deeply affected me. But of course Alex is my book boyfriend so that is to be expected I loved Raven as well. She came off as such a hard, cold person but in reality she deeply cared for the people around her. I also, shamefully, admit that I did start to like Julien. I knew there was going to be another love interest in this book- it wouldn't be YA without several love interests but I was surprised how deeply opposed to it I was. I seriously am Team Lena & Alex forever, so it emotionally hurt me to have Lena look at another guy. Needless to say I did start to like Julien as he was so innocent and naive it was almost hard to dislike him.

There is a major plot twist in at the end, and true to Lauren Oliver form, she leaves you with a cliffhanger. I won't spoil it for anyone who has read it although if you haven't read it yet: you need to! It's just as amazing as Delirium. Lauren Oliver, of course, has another beautifully written novel under her belt. Astonishing.

I can almost not wait for Requiem... In the entire year of 2013, I know this is, and will be, my most sought after and anticipated book. It's almost a tragedy though... because this beautiful series will end.

Lena has made it into the Wilds but things aren't what she expected. She expected it to be hard. She expected it to be different. But she expected to be with Alex. She learns more about the Wilds and the tough life. She wants to do her part to help those that have taken her in, but it seems that there are few she can trust. She must decide whether she can go at it alone.

I'm going to start with the bad. Pandemonium switches from "then," the time period when she first entered the Wilds, to "now," the time period where she has returned to the society that requires the cure (though she is in a different city where no one knows her). this format is the only downside to this book. Because of the continuous time jump every chapter, I had a difficult time settling in Lenass head. I could connect with her on the same level as I did in Delirium.

That being said, the writing is still gripping and beautiful. The plot is more fast-paced than Delirium. Oh and the twists and turns were exciting. There's a bit of heart breakage but I'm really starting to expect that in Dystopians. But probably the most important part of the books is the very last word. All you fellow cheaters out there who flip to the back to see what will happen...DON'T DO IT. Just don't. Luckily I didn't, but that was pure luck.

This book ends with a cliffhanger of all cliffhangers. I wanted to be mad. I should have been mad, but it was oh so exciting. I just couldn't help myself. Pandemonium set the stage for Requiem in the most epic way.

Here is a snippet from my Goodreads review:

"Lauren Oliver is back with Lena's story in Pandemonium. The story moves in staccato rhythm and this lends well to the plot but may aggravate the reader, however the story is still pretty good and a surprising ending which is only the beginning.

Lena is now living in the Wilds and she learns the ways of the people: how to hunt and gather food, make do with nothing, and form bonds with those who are different and who may ultimately leave you. Since Alex has been gone, she dreams of him and the freedom she was given because of his sacrifice, but now times are harsher- moving from homestead to homestead and facing imminent death every day pulls on her psyche. People will die. Some have."[From Goodreads]

Venturing in the Wilds take strength and courage and the new Lena has that. She still dreams about Alex and misses her mother, Grace, and Hana- but in the Wilds, you must keep pressing forward. Some readers may hate the forbidden love thing that seems to have been building up at this point, but the main message of the book seems to be love(er, Deliria) never dies.

The book took some time to get through because it is broken down into Then and Now chapters- the Now is more captivating to me, however lends well to the plot and sets the stage for Requiem. Can't wait!

I think we all have been in this situation where you wanna cry and shout and lie down to bed after reading a book. Okay, not just a book, but a really good book. This is what happened to me the time I reached the final page of Pandemonium. I can't explain the feeling. Maybe it was a mixture of things. The feeling where you don't understand whether you are sad or happy or hopeless or the opposite. And the only easy escape is to have the next book. But no way you can have it now because you still have to wait a couple of months or a year to have it. Then it hits you... frustration and torture. Honestly, I don't think I could write it down well. So let me just say that I totally loved Pandemonium, I enjoyed it so much. It is really good. It surpassed my high expectations.

What I love about this book?

The Deliria. Love.

Even Delirium impressed me so much by tackling this idea that "love" is a disease. It was amazing to see how terrified people are when they learned that you are infected... by love. And then you'll be persecuted because you feel it--love. In Pandemonium, it surprises me even more by how the plot and the setting changed. War. Chaos. Everywhere. I met a whole bunch of characters and each of them has their own story to tell. I felt sad for them. I pitied them. This book is action-packed, you won't get bored. Lots of twists and surprises that will keep you at the edge of your seat.

Lena.

She had grown so much from that innocent girl in Delirium to a fighter in Pandemonium. When the rest of the world seemed to be hardened by loss and grief, Lena remains human, strong and smart. It's nice to see that she still cries, and she still have a soft spot within her, but she's never numb. She knows what she wants and I liked her for that.

Julian.

What can I say? It was a surprise to me because I didn't see it coming. I thought it was this another guy from the Wilds. I missed Alex from the beginning, and I admit that throughout the book, I'm not sure what to believe in. I believed and/or almost believed that maybe he's really dead. (You have to read it, to find out. ) And Julian is the new guy. I loved Alex from Delirium but I can't resist loving Julian in Pandemonium. Both guys are great. I didn't know who I liked better for Lena. But then, Alex might or might not be dead.

Alex.

When I finished the book, I couldn't stop thinking about what really happened. I missed Alex the whole time in the book but Julian filled that hole in my heart. But then I guess, it couldn't be filled at all. Because when I closed the book, I grabbed Delirium from my shelf, and skimmed through the pages where I can read about Alex again. I don't want to say anything more, because I don't want to spoil the book for you. I'm afraid that I'm giving away too much already.

This book made me shiver. It seemed like Lena's emotions poured into me like a bucket of cold water. (Or maybe I should lessen my coffee intake.) Felt like I was shaking, I could hardly stand. I read the last page over and over again. The big cliffy ending almost killed me. This book is so so good, I totally loved it. I couldn't stop thinking about it and this feeling is weighing me down. I don't think I will sleep well tonight.

Deliria is infectious. Want to know what it feels like? Do I recommend it? My goodness, yes. After a roller coaster ride kind of feeling? After almost being killed by a big cliffy ending? Who am I not to share the torture?

Just read it. It's worthy of your time.

Requiem,

Please be out now.

What you're in for: Then and Now style. The wilds. Romance. Resistance. Twists and turns and surprises. Ups and downs. Scavengers.

My Thoughts:
Well, I totally called it. I wish I wouldn't have because I love surprises, but I did. I knew right from the start. I don't know what to think now...

This book was good as well. I found that it didn't keep my interest quite as much as Delirium, but it kept it enough. I was definitely into the story.

I'm finding it difficult to put my thoughts together on this one, as I just finished reading the book and I really just can't wait to start the next one after that ending. I don't know what's going to happen! I don't know how everyone is going to react or what certain people are feeling, or what a certain someone meant when he/she said that last line! Gah!

That's all I can think, so this isn't going to be much of a review. If you liked the first book, read the second. There. Those are my thoughts.

3.5 Stars

In the sequel to Delirium, Lena is stronger than ever before, and ready to start loving again.

Lena has spent several months in the Wilds. Months learning how to grow stronger and how to survive. And now she is ready to walk among the "Zombies" once again. On a special mission, Lena has to keep tabs on a pro-Cure group that is fighting to have the Cure required starting at a younger age. This organization is not the only thing that catches Lena's eye, she also can't seem to stay away from the founder's son, Julian.

Hm. I wanted to like this book. I wanted to love this book. But....I don't. Like Delirium, there isn't a lot of action but a lot happens. Lena grows into her own person and soon she is ready to infiltrate New York under a new guise. The story is told from the past and the present until the past meets up with the present. This allows the reader to watch Lena's transformation.

I was disappointed that none of the characters from Delirium were present in this book, I really wanted to see Lena's reaction to them after she discovered the true meaning of love. The characters that we are introduced to are just as strong and interesting though. We first meet the ever strong Raven who really pushes Lena to be all that she can be-and more. Their interactions were interesting and endearing; I think Raven was my favorite secondary character in this book. She is so head strong but also so vulnerable with the most heart-wrenching story.

Now.....I have to address something that I wish I could ignore. Julian. He is the poster child for the pro-Cure group Lena is trying to destroy from the inside. As fate would have it, they fall in love and their relationship starts to mirror that of Alex and Lena. Now because I know and love Alex I cannot accept the possibility of another boy who can hold a light to him. Because Alex and perfect. And the story seems to hint at a future love triangle which...I could definitely do without. So that's really all I have to say. It's upsetting to write about.

The writing is akin to poetry. Oliver describes everything beautifully and romantically. Lena's first person point of view helps show her progression into a strong and independent woman who is taking the role of her first love.

Pandemonium is not what I was expecting but Oliver never fails to create a beautiful story. I am curious to see how this will all end.

It took me completely by surprise how good I found 'Pandemonium' - so good.

'Delirium' is faster, action-packed, stronger. It's now clear 'Delirium' was only setting the stage, convincing the reader. I left off not quite liking Lena - I found that she was incredibly brainwashed, that she was weak.
In 'Pandemonium' we'll flash back and forth between Lena's "now" (when she's back inside the fences) and her "then" (when she's living in the Wilds) and I very much enjoyed following the two stories back-to-back. It was a great idea of Oliver to craft the story this way.

The Wilds was believable and I could sense the cold and struggle through the pages, I also really liked that the book was set in New York - it was much wider, freer, the atmosphere definitely didn't feel as controlled or trapped as in Portland. There was more room to breathe. For the majority of the book, it barely felt like a dystopian society which I didn't mind.

The whole plotline in 'Pandemonium' did contain a few flaws but generally had more space to move around in. Though I loved Lena's newfound egde, I found it a bit unbelievable that she'd gotten so invincible in all of her encounters. She was a little too much of a pro all of a sudden.

To me, 'Pandemonium' was all about Lena's growth. She's made a 180 from where she left off, she's grown - I was shocked by her newfound strength.
In 'Pandemonium' Lena's been learning to survive in the Wilds, to live with everything she's left behind. She's tougher, edgier, stronger. I automatically compared her to Cammie from the 'Gallagher Girls' series by Ally Carter.

I was heartbroken by how Lena held onto Alex, it actually made me like him so much more. Just the constant idea of him made me realize I needed him with Lena. Alex had been the reason for everything and it really mattered now that he wasn't around.

[Minor spoilers!] How the deal with Julian was going to unfold was apparent. Some may have been bothered by the fact that Lena could fall in love with another guy so soon after supposedly losing Alex but considering the circumstances and the odd situations she found herself in with Julian, it wasn't out of the blue. Two people, forced to be with each other, and fearing for their lives, are bound to grow some kind of connection. I didn't feel any particular way about Julian but I didn't mind him either, he was just there. [Spoilers ended!]

The end, sort of expected, had me totally excited. I'm dying to read the last installment! I need to know how things are going to turn out and I can't believe I'll have to wait until next year. Though, it's set in stone I'll read the third and last installment. How could I not with the cliffhanger Oliver presented?!

Loved it? Yes
Will I read the rest of the series? Most likely
Will I read more from the author? Yes

Enjoyable is the word of the book. I found it enjoyable at best with some interesting developments for Lena. About 1/4 in I totally guessed the ending and was right. I didn't like that, I prefer to be led astray more and guessing. Overall I like the series and will read the next one, but things are getting a bit weird for Lena and her crew of misfits. I wasn't crazy about the format of the book either, each chapter went back and forth from what happens to Lena when she crosses the fence to "now" about nine months later. Going back and forth every chapter annoyed me a bit. In book two we are learning about Lena's struggles after she is forced to leave Alex behind believing he is dead, after all he was shot. It's about nine months later and the Lena of book one is long gone. She is now tougher and proceeding with her eyes wide open to the cruelties of the "perfect" world she is suppose to live in. Along the way she will learn about new love and the possibility of finding her mother.

characters' emotions to them. From start to finish of Pandemonium, I have been living with Lena, feeling her anguish, her pain, her desires. It is raw and beautiful.

The beginning had me baffled. If not for the chapter title (now), I would have thought I was transported to the past. As I read, I realized that Pandemonium tells the story of Lena (then) adjusting to life with the "Invalids" and the story of Lena (now) undercover as part of the resistance. Through this, Lauren Oliver both tells us what we want to know about Lena's days after escaping, learning to cope without Alex, and she hits the heart of the story--Lena's involvement with the resistance.

I missed Alex. My thoughts were one with Lena in that I didn't want to believe that he could be dead. When Lena runs, desperate to believe that she can bring Alex back by meeting certain goals, knowing the futility of it all, I felt my train of thought reflected here. This. This is where Lauren Oliver's strength lies, in developing character and transferring their emotions through the pages.

Lena's recovery takes place both mentally and physically. She is weak from days foraging for herself while fleeing Portland. She is sick with despair over losing Alex. Then, while settling in an Invalid camp, she must learn how to interact with a whole new set of people, and she must learn how to live without Alex. She must learn how to fight.

Heartbreak. Love. Desires. Action. Pandemonium has it all. And as with Delirium, Lauren Oliver has left us with a cliffhanger that will nag at the edges of your mind for the rest of the year. Scratch that. The cliffhanger is even more killer than that of Delirium. (Is it possible? Oh, yes it is.) My heart is crying for Lena. Needless to say, I will definitely be reading Requiem, book three and the finale to the trilogy. Until then, I will be rereading books one and two.

Have I mentioned that, even as she continuously tortures us with cliffhangers, Lauren Oliver is one of my favorite authors?

my thoughts in a few sentences: You may have already noticed, but it bears repeating: I couldn't rate this book. I tried, in vain, to think of which one suited best, but they all seemed inadequate. God, how do I even... I'm still IN SHOCK, so consuming and crushing that I don't know what to do with myself. I'd heard countless times that this book is so different from where Oliver first hooked us in Delirium, but I didn't believe the impact would be so astounding. New Lena, tears, death, life, joy, Julian, Alex, and A CLIFFHANGER ENDING THAT IS UNFATHOMABLE. I feel like a sob is going to break out of me at any moment. Requiem, the third book, is like a distant dream, one where my hope is--perhaps foolishly--staked.

full review: A forewarning: No amount of reviews will equate to proper preparation for the sheer emotion, as bloody and gaping as any severe wound, and as equally striking, living in Pandemonium. The beauty of this sequel is so horribly, tortuously perfect, as sweetly poignant as letting go of someone important, or watching a younger sibling standing up on his or her own two feet, no longer needing a guiding hand, or leaving behind family to catch one's dreams. Necessary, exhilarating, and painful. Pandemonium is a never-ending punch to the gut, a beating we continue to beg for because it's the only way to keep the story alive and close, to peel away what bars us from the heartwrenching truth. The tears are relief from the intensity, soothing the grief coiled tight inside. And then joy slips in as well, surfacing in fresh love and purpose for our wonderful heroine, but sorrow is never too far behind in tribute to the tragedy that brought us all here, a deadly, flourishing seedling that began in Delirium's end.

We remember being sick and angry, hurt swelling in staggering, destructive tsunamis at our core for the shattering final moments of Delirium, so we are rightfully wary of what flavors we'll taste in this next chapter of Lena's life. Will we find sweetness, bitterness, sourness, saltiness or a combination of the lot? Will we be able to bear savoring the journey that brought Lena to the present and the one that helped her escape the past without fighting the urge to toss Pandemonium across the room? Reasonable questions that instigate the darkest thoughts of our minds, projecting images of the horrors that could potentially unfold, though we attempt to ignore the warnings.

Alternating between chapters of then and now, we are privy to Lena's rebirth, like watching a snake shedding its old skin, the new skin vulnerable at first, then toughening over time. Even after all her loss and hurt, however, Lena never drifts away, the person she is refusing to flee and leave behind an empty, impenetrable shell incapable of anything light and beautiful. Instead she takes her pain, her anger, her needs and morphs them into the driving force that brings her to where she is today. Pushing away her old life, burying the blockage of dark memories, and shifting into a stronger girl, Lena now embodies what it means to survive--the hard voyage and the end result. The plot never suffers for all the switching to and fro Pandemonium does; it serves as the perfect frustration, wonderful, trying, and inescapable. The story veers and flies and trips, catching on a heartwrenching moment at just the right time, pinwheeling into an emotional freefall and sucking us down with it as it drops.

Questions, questions, questions, beating, beating, in our heads, on our hearts, breathing all over every turn of the story. And the romance: revival, a new breath, a desirous need, happiness after wallowing in the forever black of our--ours and Lena's--shared sorrow. We fall in love anew, unable to compare two stories, two souls, two Lenas because they're both so lovely, delivering different feelings, tearing us in jagged bewildered halves. Bleeding, always bleeding, for Lena, for extra characters essential to her life, for the ones in her past that have no place in the now. For devastating choices, heart-numbing deaths, the emotionless herd of civilians that can't care, zombies that don't eat flesh but the love of their children, the untouched youth, the dying and deformed, the incurables.

Lauren's words, so fragile and flowing in a hardened world, with heartless people, are throbbing feelings that seep in and find room in our stuffed, close-to-brimming hearts. The importance of this fight for love, for choices and freedom, so profound in the stories of each new person we 'meet,' in relationships just formed. Hearts battered, souls weary, expressions seemingly immune to shock now, hope lifted, we stumble into the ending and shock once again takes us, punches us, pushes us to our knees, because the unthinkable drains us of thought, breath, and heartbeats.

Once, Lauren Oliver damaged us in Delirium, not quite destroying, but with those final sentences in Pandemonium, she masterfully wields a dagger of distress and impact, targets what's left of us, and becomes the perfect murderer.

If you thought Delirium was good, brace yourself and get ready to be blown away by a sequel filled with layer upon layer of romance, action and burning suspense. Fancy yourself a member of Team Alex? Maybe hold off on ordering those 100 t-shirts because you might find yourself reconsidering by the end of this book... Told in alternating chapters of past and present, Oliver will leave you gasping in Pandemonium, desperate to continue the story you're on but dying to get back to where you left off from before. Both stories are equally compelling and will have you hooked until the very end, but then comes the epic cliffhanger that will make you wish 2013 was here already! With gripping characters and an exciting plot, as usual, this must be another 2012 favourite for me!

Words can hardly describe how amazing this book was. While the complicated and intense relationship between Alex and Lena dominated the first, Pandemonium is a fast-paced action/adventure that will leave no one complaining of boredom. Immediately we're engaged by Lena's present life as she shows her support at a Deliria Free America rally, having been brainwashed and converted to a Cured. Every little bit of revealed information in the present will have you wondering how it all came to be, but the thrilling story of the past will only dredge up more confusing questions for you to answer. Back in time, Lena's in the Wild and living with a community of Invalids, learning their ways of life and holding onto this tiny thread of connection with Alex, who is presumably dead. Both Lenas are brilliantly strong characters, finding ways to overcome their own unique obstacles and fighting for what they believe in. It was amazing seeing them transform and grow, Oliver doing a superb job by furthering their depth with every chapter.

Don't be disappointed at all by the total lack of Alex in this book. I promise you will be so caught up in Lena's journey that you'll hardly even notice! One Julian Fineman does, however, help things along... Straight off the bat it's plain to see that the straight-laced son of the DFA's founder is secretly fascinated by the Wild, in love with the idea of freedom and something more, despite how much he preaches otherwise. Apart from a few forbidden books, this is the only way of life he's ever known...until Lena walks in and flips it upside down with her mere presence. Their chemistry and romance growth is stunning and realistic within the series, Julian changing his opinions about deliria almost painstakingly slowly. While I do still love Alex, Julian's complex character has completely won me over and I'm sure I'm not the only one who feels this way. His personal story is too compelling to resist, especially with his scheduled Cure looming just around the corner...

Even though this is a story about love and survival, the author weaves so much mystery into the novel just by telling Lena's story in two parts. Almost each chapter stops at a cliffhanger before the next changes your perception of something that happened before. There are so many shocking twists and hold-your-breath moments that you'll most likely read this in one sitting, because there isn't ever a place where things slow down and you can successfully peel yourself away without feeling as if you're losing a part of yourself! Just about everything in Pandemonium is a slow build up to a revelation, even though something exciting is happening every second page. No doubt, this is the best book of Oliver's I've ever read and I will honestly bow down and kiss the dirt if you can tell me you read this without feeling elated, sad, lusty, anxious and every other emotion at least once while reading this! Requiem will hopefully be just as stunning but after that cliffhanger? It shouldn't be a problem!

PANDEMONIUM is the thrilling, thoughtful continuation of Lauren Oliver's dystopian trilogy, where citizens undergo brain surgery to cure amor deliria nervosa, a disease otherwise known as "love."

In the first book, DELIRIUM, an uncured 17-year-old named Lena Haloway meets Alex. He seems safe; he even has the signature scarring to prove he's been cured. He hasn't, though, and the two fall for each other. He introduces her to the possibility that love might not be a disease despite society's belief to the contrary. Lena also learns about the Resistance, and the Uncureds living in the Wilds, where love is free to bloom. Lena and Alex make a plan to join them, but during a botched escape, Alex is killed.

PANDEMONIUM picks up with Lena being cared for in the Wilds by the Invalids, a fringe group of Uncureds who fight for the social freedom to love. Out there, life is hard --- the Invalids must fight for every scrap of life, or they will starve. It is in the Wilds where Lena is reborn, transformed. The girl from DELIRIUM is no more. The new Lena is hard, a freedom fighter. She pushes thoughts of Alex out of her mind, and when she returns to civilization, she goes with a special task: watch Julien Fineman, the-soon-to-be-cured poster boy for a "Delirium Free America," also known as the "DFA."

But in a sudden twist of fate, Julien and Lena are captured by Scavengers --- havoc-wreaking, anarchic Uncureds --- who raid a DFA rally. Without hope of escape, they find themselves starved and tortured, but why? The Scavengers thrive on chaos. They do not fight for a cause, like the Invalids do. So why kidnap Julien and Lena? They are without a cause and not organized. Or are they?

Within the confines of their dark cell, a romance takes root between Julien and Lena. To Julien, Lena is just a girl, cured (she, like Alex, has the fake signature scarring), and free from disease. To Lena, Julien is the enemy. But their time together changes things, and she finds herself drawn to him, despite her love for Alex. Are her new feelings for Julien a betrayal to Alex? Lena finds herself conflicted. She does not want to grow attached to Julien, who just may not be the unwavering poster boy the DFA has made him out to be. Julien finds solace in Lena, opening up to her about his past --- a past he never had been able to share with anyone before.

Soon enough, however, they realize that maybe it wasn't fate that threw them together, and that more complicated political machinations are behind their predicament.

Lauren Oliver's finely crafted, fast-paced second installment is sure to thrill teenage and adult readers alike. PANDEMONIUM is as much about Lena and Julien's unlikely romance as it is about our responsibility to each other --- how sacrificing one life for the good of many could be, in some instances, one life too many. This multi-layered novel will have readers questioning and thinking, and above all, cheering for amor deliria nervosa.

Reviewed by Jordana Frankel

This was one of the books that I was most searching for an ARC of at the NCTE Convention, and as soon as I heard they were out, I went directly to the Harper booth to snag one. I adore Lauren Oliver, she is a fantastic literary author, I've loved both BEFORE I FALL and DELIRIUM, and so kind and generous in person. I was lucky enough to be able to interview her back in October when she was in the Milwaukee area for LIESL & PO (check it out if you missed it) and have become even more of a fan since then. So, needless to say, I dove into this book right away and I wasn't disappointed, but it also wasn't exactly what I was expecting.

Overall, I really liked how Lauren chose to tell this story. It alternates between right after DELIRIUM ended and six months later. Through the alternating flashback/flashforward structure, the reader slowly learns about what happened to Lena and what she has had to go through to process all that she has learned and all that happened and how she has ended up where she is. Lena learns a whole new lifestyle after she escapes in the first book, and she has new experiences with new people. All of this is done within the context of her basically being new to this whole world of love being an okay emotion to feel, and that contextualizes everything she experiences.

Although I liked how the book was written, I wasn't as in love with this one as I was the first because it didn't go where I was necessarily hoping/expecting it to go. Without giving too much away, I was worried this book would veer into a certain direction, and it unfortunately does a little bit. Basically, I just feel that Lauren is such a strong writer that I didn't feel it needed this element and I didn't totally connect with it (and that's all I'll say because I don't want to get too spoilery), but, of course, I'm not a writing these characters, so I don't really know exactly what Lena needed in this story.

Ultimately, though, it's about Lena having to discover her own strength of character and courage, and figuring out what she wants for herself now that she knows what is really going on in her world. It's a bit of a quieter book than the first one, but definitely feels like it's setting up for an explosive finale. Warning: The ending is shocking. Not wholly unexpected, but still a little shocking, and will leave you clamoring for the final installment in this trilogy. It's going to be a long wait for REQUIEM next February!

Review originally posted on Heise Reads & Recommends

Lauren Oliver is officially one of my favorite authors. All of the books I've read by her -- Before I Fall, Delirium, and now Pandemonium -- have absolutely blown me away. All of her books are beautiful and jam packed with emotion. She has this amazing way of writing, where the words flow seamlessly, and the descriptions are so perfect that the entire book comes to life while you read it. She effortlessly weaves backstory through the novel, breathing life into each character she writes.

Anyway, enough about me talking about Lauren Oliver's amazing writing skills, and onto my review of Pandemonium!

The end of Delirium left me in tears. I closed the book and was sad for a fews days, because I COULDN'T BELIEVE it ended the way it did. I thought it was a standalone, because I couldn't imagine how the series could be continued after the dramatic ending in Delirium. But I was so happy when I heard Pandemonium was coming out! There was also a part of me that was worried as well, because with the way Delirium ended, I knew the characters I'd come to know and love in Delirium would most likely not be in Pandemonium. And I was right -- the only character in Pandemonium from Delirium was Lena, although Lena did think about her friends and family from Portland throughout the book. BUT Lauren Oliver made it work!

I literally couldn't put Pandemonium down when I was reading. Now that she's out in the Wilds, Lena has changed so much from the girl we first met in Delirium. She's tough and strong, and learns that life in the Wilds isn't as perfect as she imagined. We meet lots of new characters, and learn that the Resistance isn't what Lena originally thought it would be. We experience Lena's grief, and we journey with her as she goes on a mission of her own. We also get to see Lena fall in love again, this time with someone totally unexpected.

Then there was the ending. Lauren Oliver shocked me with the ending of Delirium, and did it again with the ending of Pandemonium. All I can say is -- I wasn't expecting that, OMG, and I need book three NOW!

If you haven't read anything by Lauren Oliver yet, do yourself a favor and pick up one of her books! You'll be happy you did. She's easily one of the best writers to hit the current YA scene. Every book she writes entrances me and leaves me wanting more. I can't wait to see how she ends the incredible Delirium Trilogy!

The bottom line in this book is: survive. Whether it's "Now," 6 months after Lena's escape, or "Then," within days of it, the only thing that matters is to survive. Lena was having trouble doing so in the Wilds because it's hard to survive when you're still so dependent on the Insiders. In "Then," Lena is helping the resistance and her survival isn't as jeopardized... that is, until she's kidnapped with the son of the leader of the Deliria Free America (DRA). And then survival is once again her main concern.

I loved how this was told in "Then" and "Now". The tough thing about it was how each chapter seemed to end in a cliffhanger! And then I'd turn the page expecting to see what happens next, but it'd jump to the other time frame, and I'd have to get to the next chapter for relief from the cliffhanger. It was like this almost constantly, but I loved it. It made me want to keep reading and reading until I'd read it all.

I have to say, I'm still in love with Alex. Throughout this book, I refused to believe he was dead, even though Lena was convinced that he was. Every time she mentioned him (which was rare) or thought of him, my heart hurt for her. And now I don't know what to think. So much happened in this book and I don't know what to think or feel anymore. I'm sure Lena feels the same way. But you'll have to read to find out exactly why.

There were so many new characters in this book, which is to be expected since Lena knows no one when she runs away to the Wilds. Raven was a great character, but I kept forgetting she was so young because she had so much responsibility and acted much older. For some reason, I really liked Hunter even though he was hardly a big character. And I have mixed feelings about Julian... I can't figure out how I feel about him.

Pandemonium is a fantastic sequel! I didn't expect what I found in the pages, but it was a beautifully written, intense story that I didn't want to put down. I can't wait to see how this series ends in book 3, Requiem.

This book rocked! I actually liked Pandemonium even better than Delirium, and I think I liked it better because I related more to Lena (the main character) in this book. In Delirium, I had a hard time understanding why Lena was the way she was and was so eagerly willing to get the cure. I understood her reasoning as I got further along into the story, but in Pandemonium I loved how much Lena had changed and how much stronger her character had become, and I was definitely rooting for Team Lena!

Throughout Pandemonium, the story moved between the past and present (it's referred as "Then" and "Now") in each chapter. The story didn't immediately pick up right from where that worst, most horrifying cliffhanger at the end of Delirium left off...it actually begins in the present (Now) and then it moves to the past (Then), which is the point where the story continues right after Delirium ends.

In Pandemonium, Lena gets to experience what the world is really like outside the gates that confine the people, the gates that contain the belief that the cure to deliria is essential and is the only way of life. And boy is it different outside the gates! I don't know if I would have had the strength or power to live like that, but anything would be better than having someone cut into my brain to take away my deliria. And on top of all the heartache from the end of Delirium, Lena is faced with even more heartache and trials throughout Pandemonium. AND, there's a really surprising, deceptive twist that had me totally pissed off!

There is a new, lovely romance that transpires in Pandemonium, and it's pretty easy to figure out early on who catches deliria from Lena. This new romance does get a little intense, but I just have to say, "I'm still Team Alex 100% all the way!!!" But I guess I can come to terms and accept this new boy if I really HAVE to. But for me, if I were Lena and had to be with this new boy, I would only be settling.

If you've already read Delirium (or read my review of Delirium *smiles*), then you shouldn't be at all surprised that there is another crazy cliffhanger at the end of Pandemonium. But for me, the cliffhanger was nowhere near as bad as the cliffhanger at the end of Delirium. But the cliffhanger at the end of Pandemonium only has me literally dying for the next book in this series. And now I have to wait a whole freakin' year for it! This is a series that I will for sure be recommending to anyone looking for an amazing Dystopia story with an awesome, heart melting romance.

[...]

If you follow me on Twitter, you might know that I've been dying for this book since I finished Delirium. Then, when I went to buy it the day it came out and I could not find it in any book-selling stores in my area. I was so upset. Finally, my dad brought it home to me a couple weeks after its release and I almost had a stroke because I was so frackin excited. At least the wait was worth it. So so so so so so so so worth it. Lauren Oliver brings back everything we adored in Delirium--beautiful prose, a haunting society, high emotion, relentless tension--and even more: edgier writing, sharper beliefs and goals, and a much tougher lifestyle. Lauren Oliver has created yet another book that will rage in my soul for my entire life.

I don't even know how to coherently express my love for this book, besides, "OMGOMGO MGKDGNIQUERBGIBDNKASFJN FGIHJBFGVAN AHHH YAYAYAYAYAYAYAAYAYAYAYYAYAYAYAYA OMG. PWENFHOIABXCKJFD!" I feel like Lauren Oliver took a stroll through my heart and discovered exactly what will make me love and break my heart and BLOW MY FRACKIN MIND. Because that's what she does. Every word builds me up to break me down to build me back up. I'm not sure how she manages to fit all these feelings in one book, but she does.

This book has a lot more action than the first. Whereas Delirium was about Lena discovering what she wants and figuring out how to grab hold of it, Pandemonium was about Lena fighting for what she wants and struggling to hold on to it. The book alternates between "Then" and "Now."

In the 'Then' section, Lena has just arrived at the Wilds and she is struggling to recuperate--physically and emotionally. And yet, she doesn't back down. She wants to get her strength back and she wants to carry on. She turns her weaknesses into strengths. We're introduced to new characters, which I absolutely fell for. They all have an air of mystery surrounding them because nobody in the Wilds is particularly fond of discussing the past. But their strength and kindness is evident even if their lifestyle is harsh and their words are terse. There's a lot of despair and hopelessness in this section.

In the 'Now' section, Lena has created a tough outer shell around herself. She tries not to think of the past and just keep doing what she knows is right. I think I liked this section a lot better than 'Then.' This section is just a little more fierce and contains a lot more action. I also feel more connected to Lena in this section.

I just couldn't bring myself to fall for the new guy. I mean, not even just because I adore Alex and I miss the hell out of him in this book. But also because the new guy is so naive that I just get this little boy vibe from him. I just couldn't. I mean, he's a good character but he's not good for Lena, in my opinion. I also missed Hana and Grace. I haven't read the Hana novella, so I'm not sure what happens to her, but I do hope she will be in the next book.

The ending, of course, was epic. While I kind of expected it, when it happened I was completely taken aback. I expected nothing less from Lauren Oliver. She rips me apart and stitches me back together over and over and over in the best possible way. I cannot wait for the next book. This is a series I am one hundred percent invested in and will never forget. It makes me feel so much more than I can possibly describe.

Review: SPOILERS!! Pandemonium may be just one of the many dystopian/post-apocalyptic novels we have seen recently; however, it will always stick out to me simply because of the complexity of Lauren Oliver's writing.

I admit, it took me a while to get into the groove of this book. The chapters alternate between "now" and "then" and I had a hard time figuring out when was now and what was then. Yes, slightly confusing. About mid-way into the story I felt more comfortable with that structure. It gave us a glimpse of what Lena is doing now, compared to where she was once she first got into the Wilds. Lena "then" was more weak, a bit whiny, and sort of got on my nerves. Then again, she is dealing with the fact that Alex is not with her so I tried to understand her struggles to fit into this foreign world.

If anything, Lena's time in the Wilds showed her exactly what she needed to survive. She learned how people take care of each other and the true dangers of living away from everything she knew.

The "now" part of the story takes place months later with Lena in New York. I won't go into a lot of details of this section because it was part of the surprise of the book. I was fascinated reading what was going on and how Lena was involved. But I will say that this is the part of the story where the love-triangle begins and we meet Julian.

Lena and Julian do have a very unlikely connection and I liked that a lot. I felt Julian was a wonderful character to add to this story; but, I have a difficult time with this particular relationship. Part of the enjoyment of Delirum was the honest, true love story between Lena and Alex. I feel that is a bit tainted now. This made me become irritated towards Lena during the end of this book and question her feelings. Plus, the cliffhanger didn't help. I like to have a book end during a good place where I can feel good about what I just read. I didn't really feel that way at the end of Pandemonium.

Although I didn't like this sequel nearly as much as Delirium, Lauren's writing still continues to amaze me. Each new plot line or setting is beautifully crafted and it really transports the reader into the story.

Recommended: Dystopian/Post-apocalyptic fans. Read Delirium first.

Pandemonium was close to a 5 star for me, for no other reason than the ending. The ending ~ grrr!!

Oliver has a knack. A gift. A miraculous way of giving you the most infuriating ending possible. It's quite brilliant really. If you make it all the way to the ending of the book, you will have to pick up the next book in the series. You can't possibly not want to know what happens next. That was the way of Delirium and it so much more the case with Pandemonium.

We catch up with Lena only days after her heart wrenching, emotionally charged escape into the The Wilds. Alone. She is found, near death, in the woods by a group of Invalids. She is taken in and nursed back to health and finds herself in the middle of the rebellion.

The story jumps from 'Then', her time spent in the Wilds - to 'Now', her time as part of the rebellion in NYC. Each chapter switches you to the other time frame. It isn't hard to follow each story (and they do feel like to separate stories) at the same time. It moves fairly seamlessly.

Then deals with Lena learning to survive. Survive the Wilds, survive the loss of Alex. Survive life without all she knows.

Now deals with Lena infiltrating the largest political action group fighting for the Cure.

Then, she meets a wonderful group of odd-ball characters, including Raven. Raven is a tough, no-nonsense woman who Lena will learn much from.

Now, she meets Julian. Julian is the son of the most powerful, most influential supporter of the Cure. Julian is sweet, naive and easy to like.

Then, Lena learns to let her old self die.

Now, Lena learns to love again.

Just as her heart begins to heal, she will learn truths that threaten to break it all over again.

I can't say more. It is too easy to give spoilers away. If you liked Delirium, you will most certainly like Pandemonium.

*do not read if you have not read Delirium. This review is spoiler free for Pandemonium only.*
Pandemonium was a highly anticipated 2012 sequel for me ever since Delirium left be heartbroken and at the worst cliffhanger I have ever read so far. I am glad to say that Pandemonium did not disappoint, while the direction of the book took a totally different unimaginable turn from what I expected, I couldn't read the book fast enough to find out how Lauren is going to resolve this and what will be the famous cliffhanger that I've heard broke readers' hearts again.
Pandemonium starts with a couple of days after the ending of delirium and for a while I was definitely confused with the two changing POVs. the then and now. I was so frustrated and confused that I wanted to skip a hundred pages or so to find out when was then and when was now! but I'm glad to say that Lauren didn't leave us hanging for too long and I found out a couple of chapters in what was going on. Pandemonium held its own ground to Delirium. It reminded me a bit of Shatter Me, especially the brewing romance between Lena and a newly introduced character and while that left me torn between their happiness and the fact that it is a bit too soon after Alex. However I was definitely shipping them and I loved how the romance did not overtake the book like Delirium. I especially loved all the plotting and fighting, that didn't get boring at all. Now, coming to the cliffhanger and some of the revelations, I have to say, I predicted every single one of them. The cliffhanger was totally obvious and I knew the only ending people would react so much towards was the one I had in mind. Other small revelations include Lena's mother, and the resistance.
All in all Pandemonium, while slow at the beginning, was an addicting novel that I couldn't put down, and wished wouldn't break my heart, but still broke it in the end. Whoever have read Delirium, PLEASE go pick this up right now!!

Wow! I'm seriously at a loss for words on how to describe Pandemonium in three words or less and all I can come up with is WOW. This sequel is awesome! Lauren's writing never ceases to amaze me, and she really blew me away with what she does in Pandemonium. Similar to what she does in Delirium, she goes against the norm and what I expected and pulls me into an ever more surprising world. Pandemonium introduces readers to new emotions, a slightly different world, new characters, a stronger Lena who's defiance and inner strength blew me away, and well balanced look at what shaped Lena into the person she becomes in this absolutely brilliant sequel!

Lena herself really surprised me in this sequel and I have to say this girl has courage and a will to survive that shocked me. I loved the way Lauren allowed me as a reader to see why she changed so much. It's not just her grieving heart for Alex that changed her, but the world she's now apart of. An equally dangerous place where your former self can't exist. I completely understood the anger, hate, courage, drive and defiance that replaces her more former innocent self. Together these things drive Lena to action and to do the things she does in this book. I felt like I was able to understand the emotions Lena felt through out the course of her story, and they're definitely justified by what she deals with.

I loved the unique way in which Lauren tells this story. Each chapter alternates from "Then" or from "Now", which allows Lauren to take readers further into her well structured, fast plowing story line. In doing so, readers get to see how "the Wild" and now Lena's new society have shaped her. This worked perfect for this story, and I didn't find it confusing at all. Seriously, this story line was nothing at all what I was excepting it to be. Once I started this book I couldn't put it down. Lauren Oliver's writing in this series has really blown me away. She strips you of everything you knew from Delirium and throws you into a whole new world with even greater danger, a bit more action, romance, twists and a book that's filled with defiance, change and some surprising secrets.

If you loved Delirium wait till you pick up Pandemonium. This title lives up to it's name in this book, and the things that happen will shock you! I loved the new characters that Lauren introduces into the story series and the turn of events that happen. For the sake of no spoilers I'm not going to mention of any of them, because some things will seriously surprise you! I won't even mention that killer of a cliff hanger. Requiem's release date can't get her fast enough! I have a feeling things are going to get a lot more interesting in that book. There is some very mild language in this book.

Even though I 5-starred DELIRIUM, I only just liked it a lot (though in my review, I stated I loved it - I did, but comparatively speaking, I only liked it). But I recognized it as the building block to something really, REALLY GREAT. It was still fantastic and Lauren Oliver's world was a captivating one, because what is more interesting than than a world without love?
PANDEMONIUM is an "OMG-I-couldn't-put-it-down-to-eat-or-sleep" kind of book. It picks up right where DELIRIUM leaves off, after Lena has crossed over the fence and lost Alex to the guards. So it begins at a fast-paced, somewhat delirious pace...
A lot happens in this novel. If you're hoping for a lot of Alex appearances, sorry for your luck because PANDEMONIUM isn't about Lena and Alex; PANDEMONIUM is about Lena and how she changes from Lena Holloway of Portland, Maine to Lena of the Wilds who is tough and a survivor. Her character growth throughout the story is nothing short of astounding and Oliver brings her from a somewhat weak girl to an independent woman capable of more than she ever thought possible.
Oliver is also a master of the details: Lena's description of New York City is vivid and descriptive, detailing a drab city devoid of color or any interesting life, as if the cure for deliria nervosa also turned off all the lights, and dulled the paint and vivacity of the Big Apple. NYC has become indifferent. She also perfectly describes the mass hordes of people during events, crowds so thick that even reading about them in the pages made my heart constrict in a slight panic because I'm somewhat claustrophobic. Somehow, I think Lauren Oliver was drawing the reader in just that way.
I loved how Oliver has contradictions in PANDEMONIUM, like when Raven tells Lena she doesn't get to choose how she helps, when the whole point of being outside the walls IS the freedom of choice. The irony of these little episodes was not lost on me. Sometimes it was as if Lena had never left Portland.
Speaking of Raven, I really enjoyed all the new relationships and characters that were introduced in PANDEMONIUM. Each new character brings something different to the table, and makes Lena's story so much more unique and yet still made Lena stronger by herself.
So PANDEMONIUM is Lena's story to tell and she has one. I can't say I was surprised by the ending; I expected exactly that, but it was how I would have done it. If you have read DELIRIUM and you loved it, then run out and get PANDEMONIUM the minute you can! Even if you didn't love the first one, I think you'll still really like the second because it is fast-paced, full of action and - love.

Lauren Oliver is currently one of my favorite authors. Her descriptions, characters, events, ect. are always worth reading no matter what part of the book you're on. That in mind, I have to admit that Pandemonium had some huge expectations on my part. Delirium was fantastic for me, and after I finished reading it I thought that was it. I wasn't planning for a sequel. And for as many expectations I put into this sequel that did not quite make their mark, I almost wish this book hadn't been written. Almost. However this is all just my opinion...blah, blah, blah...moving on.

I MISSED THE OLD CHARACTERS! I know it wasn't possible to bring them back in this book, but the ones like Raven, Julian, and the "new Lena" just didn't cut it for me. They were forced. Everything was forced: the relationship with Julian, the deaths of those girls-were we supposed to cry for them because I'm sorry but I didn't know them enough to squeeze it out of me-, and the danger of fleeing through the wilds in the THEN-of course some of the characters are going to be fine, in the next chapter there's a NOW with them in it. All I'm saying is who are these characters Oliver introduced us to? We learn a lot more about Lena, and we learn about Julian, but when Lena felt so betrayed by Tack and Raven, all I could think of is why? I get no sense of family from the people in the wilds she lived with, yet family is what she calls them.

Onto Julian. I'm not even sure how to comment on him. He and Lena had some really tender moments, but I am now and forever will be an Alex fan. Julian seemed girlish to me. This is the reason why: he is the "old Lena," the one ready for being cured, and Lena is Alex, the one who knows the wilds and attacks huge bodyguards with only a knife. They fell in love too quickly despite Lena repeating over and over again her remorse of Alex. Julian earned my sympathies-probably the only character who did. I felt little more for him than honest sorrow.

You might be wondering at this point: why on earth did this picky, unfeeling person give Pandemonium four stars if she keeps rambling on about all the dislikes. I will tell you why: because I can't write a review long enough to cover all the things I did like. I really can't, and many other readers will figure those like's out without me trying to describe them. I just had to let the things I disliked out. I desperately await the next book, but I hope now, with my expectations squashed to less than galaxy heights, I can appreciate it like Oliver's books should be. Oh, and if you haven't noticed the reviews screaming "I can't believe the ending!" then let me also add, "I REALLY can't believe the ending!" I think I passed out after reading that last page. It was that shocking. SO DON'T YOU DARE SKIP TO THE END!

As soon as I read the last of Lauren Oliver's Delirium, I knew I'd be buying the next in the series. The cliffhanger-esque ending of that book left many a reader gasping and clutching at the pages, asking Why why why it had to be that way. So, yes, I had high hopes for this book. Often, when hopes are so high, they get dashed. Thankfully that was not the case in this instance and Pandemonium delivered a punch that, while it isn't quite as breath-stealing as the first in the series, definitely got my attention.

I admit that initially I was a little put off by the format. The chapters alternate from "now" to "then", and I really expected it to be choppy and vile. Ms. Oliver, though, pulled it off without a hitch and I feel like the story flowed well enough forward that the pauses to shift back to the past did not leave it feeling disjointed at all.

I did miss some of the characters from Delirium, and I didn't really bond so much with some of the new ones introduced in Pandemonium, but I'm fairly certain that was by design and not because they're badly written characters. Quite the opposite in fact - everyone introduced to the reader seemed well thought out and placed intentionally.

There -are- a few little things in Pandemonium that I feel were thrown in there just because they could be thrown in. Also, the story itself felt a bit less substantial than Delirium. There was just as much world building and we do get to see why things are happening the way they're happening, but it just wasn't portrayed in as succinct (and yet perfectly detailed) a way as the first book. In that respect, this book definitely has a middle-of-the-series funk to it. It's not overwhelming, though, and certainly shouldn't cause anyone to not read through. And really, despite that, I thoroughly enjoyed reading about the time between the end of Delirium and the "now" of Pandemonium. Lena's life went from innocent and mostly carefree to epic and hard, and she GREW from it. She developed, learned, fought, feared, loved, and became a deep character with many layers.

Now - the ending. Hmm. I have so many mixed emotions about how this book ended. In one way, you're surprised - but it's also kind of expected. It really kind of boggled my mind that it ended the way it did.

Pandemonium is a beautiful story that explores the growth of self through trial and heartache and introduces the reader to the flux of emotions that can happen with all of the relationships in a person's life.

I'll definitely be reading Requiem, the third in the series.

Pandemonium is book two in Lauren Oliver's trilogy Delirium. Having recently finished book one, I was anxious to get my hands on this novel. Oliver delivered with Pandemonium and left me yet again craving more. She took me on an intense ride that had my palms sweating and my heart racing.

The novel picks up after Lena has been in the wilds, and the author cleverly takes us between then (her experiences in the Wilds since escaping) and now (what is currently happening to her). Oliver simplifies this by splitting the chapters between then and now. It was easy to follow, but a few times I felt like only reading now or vise versa when the plot became too intense.

In the chapters depicting then, we meet Raven,Tank and many more inlanders. Lena is injured and in a bad way at the beginning. Deep down she knows Alex is dead, but cannot admit this. Life is hard in the wilds, but Raven teaches Lena how to survive. Here we watch Lena mature, find her inner strength and grow into the character we see in now. The world that Oliver paints here is a tough and beautiful one. There is a beauty to the harsh landscape. The people are leaner, depend on each other and have made make shift communities. Despite how hard survival is in the wilds, Lena finds peace here. These people become her make shift family. I really liked these unique characters. Oliver made them each individuals and gave them voice.

The chapters that are dedicated to now are intense as Lena and the others assume identities within Manhattan, NY. They are following the movements of the DFA (a group that encourage young people to seek the Cure). At one of their rallies, Lena meets Julian, the son of the DFA leader. He is not yet cured, but is eighteen. Medical circumstances have prevented him from the procedure, but he tells the youth group he will have it done at the convention. Lena is told by Raven to keep an eye on Julian "no matter what" at the gathering in Times Square. Lena and Julian are captured by a protester group, and the tale that unfolds is fast paced, action packed and romantic. Together they must find a way to escape their captures. Julian begins to have feels for Lena and Lena for the first time feels alive. She has feelings for Julian, even though it feels like a betrayal to Alex. I found myself swept up in their story.

The tale that Oliver weaves between the then and now is spectacular. I couldn't get enough and just when I thought things would work out, that we could all breathe a moment....Oliver drops a bomb shell on the last few pages and ends the book with a major cliffhanger. I was mad, but then I was excited, and then I was rushing to Goodreads to see when the next book will be available. I love when a book has me this engaged and I cannot wait to read the next book.

I'm incredibly shocked at how much I loved Pandemonium. This is coming from a person who very much disliked Delirium. Book number two completely blows the first one out of the water. This is how a sequel is done!

Lena is incredibly strong this time around. She's a little wishy-washy at times, true, but if you compare her character before and after, this Lena is much more relatable. I actually like her. This may also be because I didn't like Alex (Yes, I said it!) and I got to read her character without all the lovesickness.
We do have a whole new cast of characters and I'm happy to say I pretty much enjoyed them all. Especially Julian. Julian is the son of the founder of the DFA or Deliria-Free America. (You can imagine the trouble Lena gets into with him, seeing as she's in the resistance.) His character surprised me. Seeing as how I didn't like Alex, I was sure I wasn't going to like Julian. But no, I really, really, like him. He's like a cute puppy that has been kicked. You can't help but want to cuddle him and make sure nothing bad ever happens to him again. I wish I could say more about him, but almost everything involving his character would be spoiling you on what's to come.

I did find the chapters to be a tad confusing. They switch between "Now" and "Then" telling about the Lena now and the Lena that was surviving in the Wilds. It does make the flow information weird. As long as you read the chapter headings you shouldn't get too confused. All in all, I wasn't too fond of the chapters being set up like that. I would almost say that the "Then" chapters weren't needed. Sure, a few things needed to be explained, but the "Now" chapters were so much more interesting!

I found the curse words to be a little misplaced. They popped up randomly and I pretty much cringed every time I saw one. Not that there are lots of them, in fact there are very few, but they are so out of place that it throws you off what you were reading about. Many times I stopped and thought, "Was this really needed?" Being that the book is mostly tame (very tame, I should say) having these curse words appear just didn't mesh.

The story was awesome and kept me at the edge of my seat. There's a lot of survival battles and death compared to the previous book- which is a good thing.

We do get a major cliffhanger. By major, I mean wet your pants major, CPR major, and allover, oh no she didn't major. Do not, I repeat, do not flip to the last page unless you wish to be spoiled. I made that mistake and felt like beating my head against the wall.

Now, if only Requiem wasn't a year away...

I got this as an audiobook from the library. This may be important that it was an audiobook because the author was presenting two separate timelines at the same time. One timeline was about the trip from Portland to Brooklyn, and the other timeline was what happened after they arrived in Brooklyn. When it first happened, I thought the CD was damaged and skipped to another portion of the story. Later, it just became annoying and confusing to jump between the present and the past. There wasn't a good reason for it, and it didn't add to the story.

The story also still suffered from a poorly built world and awful, non-inspiring characters. Because this is a sequel, those poor elements still existed. If you were hoping for something that would make this world plausible, you can stop hoping, because it doesn't happen.

Lena goes undercover as a citizen, and she joins an extremist pro-love removal group. Lena gets to fall in love again. Yes, again. And the book ends with a set-up for a love triangle. I am hating these type of books. And her new love comes off as a young child rather than a 19 year old.

I won't be reading book 3.

Holy crap, this book was good. I really did enjoy all of everything that happened. It was painful and sad and emotional. There was action and fighting.

The Story
Lena makes it into the wild without Alex, she believes he died and is heartbroken. There are two parts of the story and they switch back and forth each chapter. The "then" sections show how Lena integrated into the wilds life. How much harder it was and how she dealt with losing Alex. The "now" sections show Lena as part of a scheme to monitor the DFA and Julian Fineman, who is the poster boy for the youth getting the cure movement. Lena and Julian get kidnapped and the story unfolds from there.

Things I liked
I liked how the two sections switched back and forth. For some reason I don't think the story would have flowed the right way if it went solely chronologically.

I enjoyed the emotions that were portrayed and believed in them. How Lena kept thinking about Alex and apologizing to him or doing things to keep his memory there or keep his memory away.

Julian is a very interesting character and I am happy to keep learning more about him.

Things I didn't like
****SPOILER ALERT********As much as I liked Julian, I knew that Alex was still alive. I've known it since the end of Delirium and even with so much conviction in the story that he was dead....I knew he was alive. So, I was not happy with the fact that she did fall for Julian because I knew that at the end of this book it would show Alex alive and the whole third book was going to be love triangle....damn YA novels. Hopefully Lauren Oliver somehow makes this okay and not an angsty annoying third book!!!******SPOILER OVER*********

That's basically the only thing I didn't like, but it is such a big thing in my opinion because I kept thinking about it the whole time I was reading that I got a bit distracted.

Read the book, if you liked book one then you will like this one too. Enjoy!

When we see Lena again in this book, she is a very different Lena. The events of the first book have changed her and hardened her. She is now a part of the Resistance and no longer uncertain about her feelings towards the government. This book gives us a very bitter Lena, and I'm not going to lie, I kind of missed the old naive Lena. However, it was nice to see her character grow.

Fans of Alex are not going to be thrilled with this novel, being that he does not have a real presence. I am one of those people, I enjoyed the book, but I desperately missed Alex. I honestly did not realize how much I liked his character until he wasn't there. I kept hoping he would appear, only to be disappointed. The introduction of Julian (a new male lead) annoyed me, and in my opinion Julian was no Alex, not even close really.

Once again, Oliver leaves you with an ending that will leave you dying for more. I re-read the last page over and over again hoping that more pages would magically appear. I would definitely recommend this book. However, if you don't do well with cliffhangers, I would recommend you wait to read it until next February when Requiem (the third and final installment) is released. I know the ending messed with my mental health, and I almost wish I would have waited to read the series when it was completed.

It's safe to say that Delirium was on the top of everyone's must read list last year. It was an epic, sprawling dystopian that took the YA world by storm, and Pandemonium is a book that is going to be just as huge this year. It goes without saying that Lauren Oliver is a writing phenomena, and anything she pens is breath taking and worth reading.

Getting back into Lena's world was a relief. Delirium left things way too open-ended, and I was dying to know what had happened to her. The first few pages are heart-pounding as you escape with Lena. Her jumbled, broken thoughts are mesmerizing. I love how quickly I was drawn back into this story.

While I absolutely adore Oliver's writing and the way she tells a tale, I felt like this story was a bit frustrating. Let me explain: While the action and drama were undoubtedly present, this book did what so many other books and even TV shows do in their sophomore chapters. They introduced new characters, and inevitably when new characters are introduced and given their own arcs, other main characters you initially fell in love with are pushed to the side. I will say that by the end, I came to enjoy most of these new characters, but I found it a bit off-putting in the beginning.

I also wasn't entirely crazy about the flip flopping from Then and Now. The story alternates chapters, dividing the novel into past and present, which took a bit of getting used to. I was used to it by the end, but never entirely comfortable with it. I felt the story lost some of its fluidity. I would have preferred a more linear story, but that's my personal preference.

The ending positively killed me. Oliver has also mastered the jaw-dropping, cliff hanger ending, so be warned. If Delirium left you craving more, Pandemonium will leave you pulling your hair out in frustration. I personally can't wait to see what the next installment in this story brings, and how Oliver ties everything together. I'm sure it will be epic.

Pandemonium by Lauren Oliver
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Lena had escaped into the wilds and was saved by a girl named Raven. She took Lena into the homestead and helped her recover and then, taught her the ways of the wilds. Lena had to learn an entirely new way of living as she learned to let go of her old life. The only guy she had ever been around was Alex, and now, she lived with "uncured" men, which was a crime outside of the wilds. Being "uncured" meant that they hadn't received the procedure from the government to eradicate love. When you turned eighteen, you were required to receive the procedure and a match for who you would marry, either soon, or after college. Lena and everyone from the homestead traveled to New York when it got colder, which changed Lena's life even more.

I don't know how the author does it, but she is amazing. This book broke my heart, while I clutched it, needing more. I couldn't stop reading it, and when I finished, I was screaming at it. The author has a special talent of ending the book in a way that drives you nuts while contemplating murder to get your hands on the next book in the series. Waiting another year for the next book - not an option. The author has a fantastic way with words that has kept me thinking about the book well after I finished it.

I loved Pandemonium just as much as Delirium, if not more, which surprised me. I was scared to read Pandemonium after hearing bits and pieces about the book. I was upset about events that happened, but I still loved it. The book grabbed my heart and held onto it while making me feel all the emotions in the book. To me, that is an amazing book that deserves to be noticed like it is.

I can't wait to read the final installment in the series. I really don't know how I'm going to wait a year, but either way, I cannot wait.

This second installment in the Delirium series is easily defies the "second book lull" that usually occur within a series or trilogy. I was absolutely dreading...waiting for that to happen, but I was Pandemonium is fast-paced, full of heart-ache, the deliria, and absolutely packed with action. The beginning of the book threw me off because the settings and times switch back and forth between the Wilds and society, "now" and "then". I got into the swing of things a few chapters in, but it was a bit disorienting at first.

Ready for something shocking? A NEW [read: swoon-worthy] MAIN CHARACTER. That's right...and he's pretty wonderful, no doubt. [I'm attempting to leave out spoilers so as not to ruin it for anyone who hasn't read it yet!] Let's just say that I was VERY happy with this book...the emotional ups and downs, Lena's transformation from one of the "zombies", she really came into her own in this book. I was ecstatic to see her express her own opinions and fight like crazy to make a difference in a world so oppressed, manipulative, and disfigured by hypocrisy.

I am so excited for the next book Requiem that doesn't come out until NEXT February. I think I will have plenty of time to re-read both books before then!! If you have read both, PLEASE leave comments telling us what you thought and if you've only read Delirium, tell us what you're looking forward to in the second book or what you loved about the first. We love to get feedback from y'all and want to share our excitement and love for this series, the characters, and most of all, the author, Lauren Oliver!

*Fair warning: This book will leave you emotionally drained and filled with even MORE questions than Delirium did! It's entirely possible that you will be left sitting, staring, asking "WHY?", screaming "No, no, no!", sobbing quietly/hysterically, and perhaps cursing how far away the next book release is.

I was looking very forward to reading this book. I like Lauren Oliver as a writer and a person in her interviews. I can't say there was one over arching flaw in this book: the action is intense, there is a new romance with an interesting new character, but something was missing that kept me from going head over heals for this book.

Lauren writes beautifully. There are several quotes that caught my breath: hate fuels you, but rots you from the inside and a quote about the best books being a door. The context in which they were written maybe left the quote without the full effect that it could have had. I get that the story is a what if dealing with what if the religious right took over the country, but I feel that could have been explored more, especially in relation to Julian, the pro love cure leader's son. I found him to be an interesting character searching for God and reason in his life after being disappointed by the values for which he was being used as the poster child representative. I would have liked to see more about that. Maybe if the first person narrative hadn't been used.

I will read the next book despite being disappointed by this one because I want to know what happens with the romantic twists and Lena's discovery of her mother. Over all this is a good book to read this summer.

And finally my parent, older reader of YA two cents worth. THere are a number of swear words in this book and the violence is more intense than a lot of YA books. The main character kills several pursuers in self defense and if you have a problem with violence towards animals, there is a killing of a rabbit.

Hoo boy. Delirium is one of my favorite dystopians thus far. I'm fascinated with the idea of love as a disease and Lauren Oliver's exploration of the mindset that created the "deliria". Not only is the set up a great hook, but Oliver's writing is impeccable and draws you in to her story. Pandemonium is, in my opinion, at least as good if not better than Delirium. This is because we get to explore Lena's broken life. She is in mourning. Not just for Alex, but for the comfortable life and people she left behind to get to the Wilds. But Lena has to embrace the life she has been thrust into or die.

Many people have disliked, and will dislike, the switch between "Then" and "Now" in Pandemonium. I found it to be a very effective and fascinating set up, though. First, we see the contrast between the lives of those in the Wilds and the citizens of New York. We also see the contrast between Lena as she was immediately after escaping into the Wilds and when she is living in New York. Lena left her home with Alex to lean upon, making the decision easier--though not easy in any way--and cushioning any kind of blow. But when she decides to help the rebellion, she doesn't have anyone to fall back on. She is making decisions free of outside influence and with the knowledge of what the consequences could be. That made me admire her more than I did at any point in Delirium.

Honestly, there's not much more I can say past, "READ IT." I've read a lot of dystopians in the past could of years, and none have gripped me like these have. Nor have I read a second book in a trilogy in a long time that is the equal of its predecessor. Pandemonium is that, if Delirium's better.

This series was suggested to me by a family member, and I have to admit that I wasn’t sure at first. I had been sticking to the more known novels for awhile and this was the first time I had heard of it.

Pandemonium, I have to admit, kind of lost me for a little bit. I wasn’t as into it as I was Delirium, and it was kind of slow in the beginning. Plus, it kept bouncing back and forth between two times and it introduced so many new things at once that I was confused at first. But, the story finally picked up a part of the way through, and I got back into it again, so no worries! The ending was another frustrating cliffhanger that made me actually scream and yell for the next book, and it completely made up for the slower beginning. Once again, I wanted to throw the book at a wall just to relieve my internal anger and passion.

MAJOR SPOILERS FOR DELIRIUM!

Lena can't believe what she's just survived. But did she really survive? And if she did, then where is Alex? They were together & now they're not & she's stumbling through the Wilds. After being rescued from what would have surely been her death, Lena finds herself among the "invalids" fighting alongside them for survival.

It's not exactly what Alex described, not really anyway, since she's in a different part with different people. As her strength returns she begins to explore her new home with people like Blue, Raven & Hunter. Soon enough though it's time to move for the season, but nothing goes as smoothly as it should.

Oscillating between a "Then" time period in the Wilds & a "Now" time period back in the city working for the resistance by infiltrating a loyalist group, Pandemonium offers the absolute best of Delirium with a hint of awesome! While most second novels in a trilogy (or any series for that matter) tend to fall down a dark, sad hole where nothing important seems to take place, this book is the antithesis of that state. We learn so much more about the society that the characters inhabit & what exactly is going on in the Wilds.

But just when you think you've got things figured out & squared away into their neat little packages, Lauren Oliver throws you a nasty curve ball. I hope you enjoy curve balls because there's no avoiding this one & I honestly didn't see it coming. Take your time reading this book. There is a lot going on that you need to pay attention to & a lot of emotions being thrown all over the place. It kept me on my toes & has me primed for the final installment.

FIRST OF ALL!!! If you haven't read Delirium you must go and read it right now! It is defiantly one of the best books I have ever read in my life. And this book is not far from it. I received this book from NCTE from Harper! Thank you so much. I could not wait to read this book. For the last couple weeks I have been told that I have to read it. That it is amazing! And boy is it ever.

The book starts where the first book finishes. The chapters are split in Now and Then. You are learning about Lena's experiences on finding herself. She is trying to figure out who she is because Lena is not the normal Lena anymore. She is different because she has to be. She is in the Wilds and she is trying to survive. She is learning to do things that she has never done before to pull her weight with the Wilds. I really like that Lauren incorporated this into the story. It showed her struggle with what she had to do. It showed that she was having a hard time dealing with the death of Alex.

But during this you find out about Julian. Julian is a very important. He is about to be cured and he is doing it because this is what his family wants. But there are some hold ups because Julian and Lena are kidnapped and held hostage. They are going to do anything to get out and escape to the Wilds. Oh but have no fear....there are twist and turns! Boy are there twist and turns!

This is my favorite book of the series so far! I know that we still have book three so I need to wait unit that book comes out to make my decision, but this is defiantly up there for book of the series! Maybe book of the year....but ask me again in December...:)

Pandemonium was an emotional punch to the gut from the moment I opened the book the second I slammed it closed and threw it on the bed in an "OMG WHAT THE CRAP JUST HAPPENED" moment. Even though I was kind of expecting the ending, thinking it was coming and reading the way that Lauren Oliver delivered it was two completely different things. Lauren Oliver just knows how to throw emotions in your face and leave you gasping.

I really loved that in Pandemonium Lena had to really discover how unbelievably strong she is. She had to learn to survive and to become someone she never thought she could be. She had to reinvent herself. She stood up for what she believed in, even if that meant she had to stand up against people she cared about, which is something I really respect.

There was some really tough moments in Pandemonium. I had a hard time reading about the struggles some of them went through in the wilds, like the starvation. There is one scene of grief (I won't spoil who it was for) that just tore my heart out!!

Pandemonium was action, suspense, love, hate, friendship, grief, and reinventing yourself to become who you were meant to be. With another killer ending that leaves us DYING for more, Lauren Oliver once again took my breathe away and I loved Pandemonium even more than I did Delirium. I can not wait to see what she has in store for us next.

If I've learned to expect one thing from Lauren Oliver, it's unbearable cliffhangers! When you read Pandemonium I can almost guarantee you, like me, will end up begging for the next book!

Pandemonium was a slow start for me. At the beginning I felt that it just didn't compare to the first book. Boy did I change my mind during the second half!! Just as Delirium was emotion filled, Pandemonium certainly had its moments as well. There were a few particular scenes that I struggled with... If you've read this you probably have an idea of what I'm talking about. The story wasn't completely focused on emotion, however. There was plenty of action to keep me satisfied as well, even more so than the first book.

Many new characters were introduced into Lena's story. The character I found most intriguing, like many others, was Julian. I loved the contrast between the two: how each of them came from different backgrounds but managed to work together. I loved watching the suspicion between them melt away as they learned to trust one another!

I enjoyed Pandemonium just as much, if not better, than Delirium. The characters, action, and turn filled plot left me begging for more. As I mentioned earlier, be prepared for yet another cliffhanger! Yes, I am still recovering from it! Be sure to check out the Delirium series: Delirium, Pandemonium, and Requiem (coming March 2013)!

"Love, it kills you. Both when you have it...And when you don't."

In DELIRIUM, Lena Haloway fled to the Wilds before the society could "cure" her of her amor deliria nervosa (love "disease"). Her boyfriend Alex wasn't so lucky.

In PANDEMONIUM, we follow Lena Morgan Jones's journey through the Wilds where she meets an Invalid named Raven and becomes part of a group of Invalids traveling from homestead to homestead in order to survive.

The book is told in alternating chapters: The "then" (her six months in the Wilds) and the "now" (infiltrating NYC to keep tabs on the DFA who promote the cure). It's in NY where Lena meets Julian Fineman, son of the head of the DFA, a boy scheduled to be cured even though it may very well kill him.

"In Zombieland, someone is always watching. There is nothing else for people to do. They do not think. They feel no passion, no hatred, no sadness; they feel nothing but fear, and a desire for control. So they watch, and poke, and pry."

I made the mistake of reading Allie Condie's MATCHED and CROSSED in between DELIRIUM and PANDEMONIUM, which made things especially confusing and difficult to remember which was which (it didn't help that two character names are the same in both sequels, both are told in alternating chapters, and both take place largely in the Wilds/Outer Provinces).

While Lauren Oliver is one of my favorite authors, she is known for maddening endings. PANDEMONIUM has a very slow start (it took over 100 pages for me to get into it) and I went ahead and read the last page to see what I was getting into. If you care about suspense at all, DO NOT RUIN IT BY READING THE LAST PAGE first.

Rating: Three and a half wings.

This review originally appeared on [...]

Overall, Pandemonium was a relatively enjoyable read up until the very end. I enjoyed the changes we saw in Lena, from her becoming a little less whiny and a little more capable to her learning to express those primal human emotions that make us tick--anger, desire, happiness, familial love. Seeing her learn to interact with other people who express those emotions was interesting as well, and I was much more invested in her character this time around. I also didn't mind Julian for the most part, but there were inconsistencies in his character and his relationship with Lena that just gnawed at me. Maybe it's the fact that he needed rescuing all the time, yet he's the one always reaching out and steadying her. If she's the one who has had to rough it in the wild and he's the pampered rich boy, how is it that she is always exhausted and falling down everywhere and he isn't? Especially shortly after he has been beaten up and is still healing?

I really liked new characters Raven and Tack, both for their personalities and the roles they played in Lena's new life. Raven in particular had a couple visceral, emotional moments with Lena that were outstanding. Unfortunately, their characters took a jarring turn near the end of the book and then overcorrected with very little explanation. Either one of these changes could make sense to me taken alone; both together just felt lazy.

This book is setup so that every chapter alternates between being 'now' and 'then'--'then' beginning where book 1 ended and 'now' jogging ahead to a later time. Despite hating this setup at the beginning, it grew on me as time went on. The problem is that there is never any moment where the two time periods connect. Though there are characters from 'then' who show up in 'now' and new skills and attitudes that also make the leap, the plot never does. I kept waiting for the final 'then' sections to become the beginning of 'now', but it never happened. It's like she was writing two train cars that were eventually going to join up, only to discover they were running on parallel tracks and she was too lazy to switch them over.

This brings me to the end--the main reason for the 3-star rating and a prime example of a phenomenon I have come to call the 'Catching Fire Effect'. I loved Catching Fire, but its ending of OMG CLIFFHANGER set a terrible precedent for how to end book 2 in teen dystopian trilogies. I'm pretty sure every teen series I've read since Hunger Games has made use of this device, and it's dreadful. To put it in television terms, there is always a series arc and a season arc. I'll give Oliver props for wrapping up the book 2 arc, but throwing in that final half a page is cheap, frustrating to the readers, and is (theoretically) unnecessary. You have to count on your series arc being strong enough to bring readers back for the next installment without the bait of OMG, WHAT COULD POSSIBLY HAPPEN AFTER THIS COMPLETELY UNFORESEEABLE TURN OF EVENTS?! Also, did anyone really NOT see that coming?

EDIT: For those readers who, like me, are hypersensitive to violence against animals, be warned there is a scene that will make you squirm. It's not as graphic as the one in Delirium, but it was difficult for me to get through nonetheless.

This book rocked! The "new" Lena now has to come to terms with a hard lifestyle in the Wilds. Surprisingly, I really like the character of Julian in this book, which I thought would be hard after reading all about Lena's first love, Alex, in Delirium. The traumatic experiences and fight to survive shared between Lena and Julian in the story really allowed for character development and unlikely chemistry between both.

The ONLY thing I do NOT like is there is a bad guy (a "Scavenger") in Pandemonium who they call "the albino." I know someone from another country with albinism and it stinks that any time the condition of albinism is portrayed in media the people with the condition are bad guys/girls or bad luck. Sad, because that belief is existent in many countries and many people with that condition suffer because of this superstition! I just wish, maybe even once, someone with albinism would be portrayed as a non-scary character.

Note: This is a review for the middle book in a trilogy; as such, it may contain spoilers for the first book. Proceed at your own risk.

It was different reading this one than it was listening to the audiobook for Delirium. I don't know if the format difference is the reason, but I thought Pandemonium was better than the first one. It was a different story; it was a deeper story. In this book, Lena grew as a person and she grew into the strength she didn't know she had in Delirium.

At first, the two timelines threw me off a bit, but as the story progressed, I found I liked the way it was written. We were able to see the new, stronger Lena - but at the same time we got to see how she got there.

I was apprehensive about a new love interest for Lena - but I also knew it was inevitable. I'm of two minds, however, when it comes to the character of Julian. He seems like a perfectly fine boy, but I feel like I didn't see enough of him or his personality to truly feel the relationship grow; it actually seemed a bit forced and happened way too fast for me. His acceptance of who Lena was was just too tidy and convenient. People don't change their whole ideologies overnight - even Lena wasn't quite capable of that. And while I don't fault Lena for trying to find happiness again, I was fully expecting the end of this book - which may have also driven my more negative feelings for Julian.

Bottom line: If you enjoyed Delirium, you'll adore Pandemonium.

Remember how I didn't really love Delirium? How I couldn't connect with the characters and found the plot kind of dull? Well, that is most certainly not the case with Pandemonium! I absolutely adored it!

Lena was a much more interesting characters now that she's been un-brainwashed, but I still found it difficult to connect with her in the beginning. Luckily there were so many other spectacular characters to fill in the holes before the end, by which Lena had grown into a powerful heroine.

The setting was drastically different, but in a good way. In Delirium, the world they live in feels white-washed and drab, whereas the world in Pandemonium felt warm and vivid and exciting.

The way the book was written in two alternating perspectives was really different. It tells the story through two separate storylines that eventually meet up somewhere in the middle. The way they wove into each other flawlessly was beautiful.

And speaking of beautiful, have you ever reading anything written by Lauren Oliver? Because she is a word genius. Her writing is perfect and delicious. It flows smoothly and effortlessly and perfectly tells the story. I would happily read anything she writes, whether it be another bestselling novel or a shopping list!

Pandemonium is a fantastic sequel, well worth the wait. It is a well-crafted page-turner chock full of action, survival, rebellion, emotion and romance. The new characters introduced in this novel are interesting and have just the right amount of depth. Lena's development is fierce and believable. She forges ahead, strong and determined to figure out who the real Lena is after everything that has shaped her. Just when she thinks she's about certain, life throws another giant wrench in her way. The cliffhanger at the end of this novel is to die for.

One storytelling technique I really like when it is well done is that of alternating between the past and the present. I think it can be a very efficient, exciting way to tell a backstory. Oliver uses the technique seamlessly in this novel. Pandemonium begins directly where the events of Delirium left off. These chapters form the "then" chapters. The other half of the story begins with Lena on a mission, forming the "now" chapters. The events that take place during these chapters still occur in chronological order. The threads of this story are braided, each alternating to come forth and tell a part of Lena's story. The transitions are well-timed and make a lot of sense.

I'd recommend Pandemonium to anyone that read Delirium. This sequel is well worth your while.

Oh.My.God. I am very upset that i have to wait roughly a year to see what happens next!! Requim will be the 3rd and final book in The Delirium series :-(
Lena has escaped to the Wilds and yet, lost the 1 person she was escaping for in the process. Thrown in with this group of "invalids" Lena is slowly learning everything she knew, everything she was told was a lie. She struggles but learns to adapt as she rebuilds her strength and her life.
The story goes back and forth with chapters titled "Now" and "Then"... Then is actually now when Lena is in the Wilds, how she struggles to adapt and survive when her entire world is litterally turned upside down! Now is when Lena ventures back to the City, Now is when Lena meets Julian, The head of the DHA's son. I found myself liking Julian as a love interest for Lena more so than Alex, what happens between them you will have to read to find out.
Pandemonium is packed with action and suspense; you often don't know which side a particular character is on or where Lena and Julian will end up. This is what makes it so spectaculiar!
Warning........... the ending, cliffhanger, will leave your jaw on the floor and have you saying WTH?!

I KNEW it!!!

That's all I have to say about the ending of this book. In a good way. It's one of those endings that has you saying "No way!" while at the same time you were secretly hoping for it to happen the whole time.

This second book in the series started off slow for me. In terms of plot, things move a little slowly in the first half while we find out what happened to Lena in the time after she escapes Portland. We learn more about the "Invalids" and how they live. There is more world-building. All of this is interesting and necessary but the book really gets going in the second half which has a lot more action.

In terms of character, we see a lot of Lena's progression from soft, sheltered, whiny girl to hard, competent, strong and smart. She still has an emotional vulnerability that draws the reader in without being too angsty. I loved Julian! It was refreshing for me to see a male character who is vulnerable and emotional while still remaining masculine. He really became a favorite of mine.

I started off thinking I was going to rate this about a 3 but after finishing I give this a solid 4 stars. I'm very much looking forward to the third book in the trilogy!

I can see that I may be in the minority here, but I liked "Pandeomium" better than "Delirium." (And not only for the male lead...) In many ways "Pandemonium" is completely different from the first novel "Delirium." In the first novel, Oliver spent the bulk of the novel laying the groundwork of the world. Even though there were brilliant moments there, I was bored through most of the first 200 pages. Delirium was a slow (but steady!) burn, which gradually became a boil in its passion by the end(much like Lena's own journey.) In "Pandemonium" it's more like a match to gasoline. I was pulled in directly with Lena's new life as an Invalid living with other survivors. Somehow this book captured more of the intensity especially in the "then" scenes, which showed her life as a new invalid with an experience group. I found those scenes really inspiring. In the "now" chapters we then can see the results of her journey there without becoming too monotonous with the "then" scenes.

Even with this huge change, I adored this novel. I knew from "Delirium" that Oliver could write and world-build very well, but "Pandemonium" solidified her as a YA novelist. I loved the excitement and action she put into this novel. Lena grows immensely with this one. I think for some it's a little too quick, but I appreciated that a lot happened off screen with the "then" chapters. Lena is a serious BA in this. She is so different from her scared and apprehensive self in the first one, which I don't think I would've liked as much. I just loved her spirit in this one. Her strength and growth was awesome to see, as shown by Oliver's more action-oriented plot. Also, Oliver's writing is still superb, if a little lengthy in descriptors at times. Oliver knows her audience and plays it well as a classic of the YA genre, yet that's also where it fails...

Even with all this praise, I just cannot give it 5 stars. In many ways it falls into the trap of the YA trope that is going one right now, where it was just so similar to others out there. (ie "The Hunger Games," "Divergent") She took few risks to be different. This book was predictable to the extreme, especially the last page. And again, she sets up the third book with a trite ending that I really disliked, and again the girl will have romantic complications to come.

Yet, I cannot dislike the book. It's strange, but her writing just does a brilliant job of creating another world inhabited with realistic characters and exciting plots. It's a quick read, but a wonderful one that I recommend to any one loving all the dystopian novels right now. In many ways I'm torn over my (shocking) joy I read in this, when by all accounts I should have been bored with these tropes by now. It just didn't happen, and surprisingly, I enjoyed this one better than "Delirium." Oliver appears to have a plan with this trilogy and I will be checking out the last one.

Pandemonium is the follow-up novel to Delirium. This sequel knocks it out of the park! The story once again centers on Lena, a teenage girl living in a world split in two- the world that has taken love out of the equation and the Wilds, the bombed out shell of the US that those who have chosen love over all else. Pandemonium goes deeper into Lena and her world. She is no longer following society, blindly accepting her fate of a loveless life. She has made it to the Wilds and is now struggling to survive as the "new Lena".

The story jumps back and forth between "then" and "now", telling the story of Lena when she first came to the Wilds and the ongoing story of Lena and the Resistance. Lena must learn to cope with the loss of Alex, who she fell in love with in Delirium. In the "now", she has been integrated into society once again and is working for the Resistance from the inside. Lena shows much more depth as a character in this book- not only has she learned about love, but also about hate and how it is just as strong a force as love.

Parts of the story were, yes, predictable, but there were for sure moments of "wow, didn't see that coming!" and the ending was such a cliff-hanger, I cannot wait for the third installment!

Well written, lots more depth to Lena as a character, a solid read!

To reiterate my mother, "Holy Cliffhanger, Batman." This is pretty much my thought after it finished.

I listened to this book on CD and the whole Now and Then parts were a bit confusing. But other than that, which was pretty much just the book on CD part, I loved this book about as much as I loved the first one.

Lena starts out in the Now portion of the book being in a school, now in Manhattan in New York. When it starts, I was wondering how she got there and why? It was an interesting way to start out the book. We find out she is on a mission for the resistance, although she is not sure what exactly. She goes to DFA, or the Delirium Free America, meetings and pretends she is a good cured girl.

While this is going on, the book also brings us to the Then portion, basically bringing readers up to speed on how she came to be doing this mission and what all happened after the first book ended.

There are quite a bit of twists and turns that happens in this book that I didn't see coming. And then of course the cliffhanger at the end, which was surprising to say the least. Now I can't wait to read the next one as soon as I can get it.

AS much as I am enjoying this series I have a hard time with Lena's behavior.

****SPOILER ALERT******

She is crazy in love with Alex and she thinks that he is dead even though she has zero proof of it.
Them she meets Julian and after spending a few days locked up with him, she is already in love with. I do not get that.
Love for someone does not die when they do. She should be going thru some mourning, she should not so easily fall again for the "first" guy that comes around.
She never made as effort to really fins out about Alex and when she has a chance to look up and see if his name is in the book or prisoners, she does not even look.

I want to smack and shake her. OK, rant is done. Starting the next book now.

A lot of series I read, the second book in the series is never as good as the first one. But in this case, I like Pandemonium so much more.

The second book in the Delirium series, Pandemonium, I found a lot different from the first book. It almost come across as a different book, just with the same main character, Lena. I didn't really like Lena in the first book, and I found she was still pretty annoying in this one as well. Just not as much. I did find a lot of growth with her character from the first book. Which I liked. She wasn't as naive as I found her in the first book.

After starting Pandemonium, something I found I didn't like was that the chapters skip from past to present. I'm not a huge fan of flashbacks, so going into this book I did find myself hesitate to continue reading. But I was far to curious about what was going to happen and what was going on to stop.

The romance *sigh* ( not the good kind of sigh). I am a huge Alex fan. Alex is what saved the first book for me. So for him not being in this book sucked. But I got over that and just continued reading. But then we meet Julian. First let me say what I did like about it. In the first book it was Alex that taught Lena that love was okay. And in this book Lena did the same for Julian, as Alex did for her. I really liked how that linked to the first book, otherwise it would have seemed liked two different books. But moving on, Alex, great male character, so for Lena to (what seemed like automatically) move on to Julian, was disappointing. It made it seem like what Alex and Lena had in the first book wasn't that "real". Now I may be a little, just a little biased when it comes to Alex, but I didn't like Julian at all. I would have rather there be no romance in this book. Okay, the romance wasn't THAT bad, but like I said I might be biased. ;)

The ending, at least for me, was no surprise. Nonetheless, I still found myself chanting "Yes,yes,yes". The ending made me very happy, but still annoyed because I have to wait for the third book.

The writing, just like the first book, was beautifully written. I did really like Pandemonium more than Delirium. And the fact that this one was better for me than the first one, makes me think the third one will be even better. If you wasn't a huge fan of Delirium, I would recommend still reading this book, because it really did seem like a different book.

Phew. Lauren Oliver really had her work cut out for her in this follow-up to, Delirium. Not only do we see Lana's character grow immensely and really come into her own, but we also see the introduction of an almost entirely new cast of characters.

There are so many things that I would love to go into about Alex, Julian, and Lana's mom...but that would be giving away just too many potential spoilers; and it would totally ruin the experience for anyone about to read the book.

The book is written in Lana's present reality, but it also flashes back to scenes from her past. Take your time reading this book as it follows Lana from "Now" (as a member of the Resistance in NY) to "Then" (as she rediscovers who she really is in the Wilds). Lauren Oliver packed a lot of punch in this book and, at times, you can almost feel the emotion rolling off of the pages like a thick fog. You will feel the weight pressed against your chest at times during this book because poor Lana is put to so many tests, both emotionally and physically.

Let me just say that by the end of the book I was (literally) sitting on the edge of my bed, wide-eyed, and by the last words, I was cursing out loud (and, I will admit I wanted to smack Lauren Oliver - sorry Lauren, I love you!, but that was my first reaction) because the book was over and I cannot believe that Lauren Oliver expects us to sit and wait until February, 2013 for Requiem to come out so we can find out what happens next!!!!!

My friend told me to read these books and made it very clear how much she loved them, I was gonno read them anyways but with a little push from her made me read them quicker. I'm almost 16 years old and a junior in high school, and I love reading young adult, and science fiction books. I have read Harry Potter, the hunger games, the mortal instrunents, beautiful creatures, twilight, percy jackson, Vampire academy, matched and many more awesome books that changed my world and made my imagination bigger...And this book was ABSOLUTELY GORGEOUS!! The story was brilliant and so unique. The love story and the love triangle was also another thing to melt over and love about this series. I have never imagined a world with no love, but it truly terrifies me. Right from the beginning, I got hooked in easily with Lauren Oliver's rich details and beautiful writing style. I loved Lena's character. Lauren Oliver and Lena added a qhole another world into mine. I say read it, and you won't regret it ;)

Originally posted on Pawing Through Books on 6/27/12

I loved Lauren Oliver's Delirium when I read it and Pandemonium did not disappoint. Thankfully, it did not suffer from any sort of second book syndrome! Pandemonium is told in Lena's point of view, in the past and in the present. Delirium ended with a cliffhanger and Pandemonium picks up right where it ended when Lena is speaking of the past.
At first I wasn't sure if I was going to like the fact that Pandemonium is set in the past and in the present. However, it worked really well and I loved seeing how the story developed through the alternating time periods.
During Oliver's Pandemonium Lena struggles to bury her old self and find a way to survive in the wilds and help the resistance. You are able to follow her through her struggles to survive, make friends, and find her place in this 'new world.' We are left with another cliffhanger that will leave you longing to get your hands on Requiem.
Lauren Oliver's writing is captivating and you are easily brought to the Delirium world. You are able to connect to the characters and develop a sense of what it would be like to be going through their struggles.
Overall, I loved Lauren Oliver's Pandemonium just as much as I loved Delirium. I can't wait until Requiem is released to see how Lena's story ends.

“Oh my God!” This was the only thing I could think when I read the last page of this book. Anyone that has already read it knows exactly what I’m freaking out about. Oh my God! Lauren Oliver, you’re killing me here! I need to know what happens now! I can’t wait for Requiem!

Okay, all the freaking aside, (I’m still freaking), this book was really good. It was written in a different way than Delirium, set up differently. This book seemed like something completely different than the last book. Things that I didn’t think could happen happened and I was surprised at all the new and interesting things we learn about and experience in these chapters. It’s full of heart breaking characters and crazy plot twists. The only thing I could say I would have preferred to be different is that this book could have easily been split into two separate novels. Overall though, amazing.

I LOVED Delirium. It was one of my favorite books last year. So I couldn't wait to get my hands on Pandemonium! And it didn't disappoint.

Lena is a such a strong character. I don't know if I could be as strong as she is if I were in her shoes. I liked how the story went back and forth between "Then" when Lena was in the Wilds and "Now" when is she is under cover for the resistance. The only thing is, I can't remember how the "Then" and "Now" connected. The last "Then" part I remember reading is when they are traveling for the winter and at the last homestead, they get attacked by Scavengers. Can anyone please help me connect what happened after that??? Thanks!

Anyways, in this story we are introduced to Julian. I didn't want to like him. I really didn't. But I did.

There are a bunch of twists and turns in this book. Unfortunately, I saw all but one coming. That didn't make the story any less enjoyable though. The book is sooo easy to get into. I get so caught up into Lena's world. I can't wait to read the third book in the trilogy but hate that I have to wait so long!

It wasn't supposed to be this way. She chose to live, she chose to be uncured, to run to the Wilds with Alex. Now she is alone with strangers in the Wild and all she can think about is Alex covered in blood on the other side of the fence. He was supposed to come with her. Her fear and grief soon turn to anger and vengence as she learns the ways of the Wild from Raven, Tack, Hunter, and the others in the compound. She joins the resistance vowing to do her part to help bring down the regulators, the cured, the DFA. All those who took her mother and Alex away from her. Julian, the DFA leaders son is her mission to watch and observe but when the scavengers show up at the rally and nearly killer her and Julian, they are running together and kidnapped. Now she must join with the him in order to escape and she begins to show him how to live and be free and uncured. She shouldn't be having feelings for him though, he is the enemy, he is NOT Alex, and yet she learns to let go and begin again when a familiar face shows up.

This second book in the Delirium trilogy did not disappoint at all--it was fast-paced, action-packed, and very engaging. I like that Oliver chose to alternate between the recent past and the 'now' of Lena's life: the chapters switched off between the time directly following the end of Delirium and Lena's present, in which she is an involved member of the resistance movement. Lena demonstrates growth as a character in this story, becoming stronger and less afraid than she was in the first book. Without giving away anything, there is a pretty significant plot twist at the end of the book, which was thrilling and definitely makes me want to read Requiem, the third in the series, right away! If you enjoyed Delirium, Pandemonium makes for an exciting follow-up novel.

The twists and turns in this sequel to Delirium will keep the reader on their toes. It was a little confusing at first because you think the author has left out a great deal of information, but it all works itself out so keep reading! This book, if possible, was even more emotional than the first. I found I didn't want to put it down and couldn't wait to get back to it when I did have to step away. There is a cliffhanger, so if you hate that make sure you have the next book handy. I can't say I wasn't hoping for something of this nature to happen at the end, but I was shocked none the less. Great for fans of the first book, the author herself or the dystopian genre.

This review found originally on All The Stacks [...]
If I had to pick my favorite new-to-me author of 2012, I would pick Lauren Oliver. I was first introduced to Lauren Oliver through her first book Before I Fall (my review can be found on my other blog here). I loved it so much, I had to pick-up Delirium which is amazing and let me to read book two in the series, Pandemonium.

Lena is now in the Wilds, having made it over the fence alone, at the end of Delirium. The chapters are broken up into Now and Ten which depicts Lena when she is first found in the Wilds and the present, where she is working for the resistance. The concept of dual personas, remains throughout Pandemonium. Lena is a broken shell when she is first found, weak, heartbroken over all that she has lost. She starts to build up walls against feeling the pain and tries to put the past behind her.

On her first mission for the resistance, she is forced to confront the two Lena's and decide if she wants to continue not to feel. If she wants to let society, either the zombie society of the cured or even that of the resistance, to tell her how she should feel. Through Oliver's deft writing, the choices Lena makes begin to unfold until she decides to take a stand for what she knows is right.

I really enjoyed the many shades of gray throughout Pandemonium. The lines blur between the good guys and the bad guys. Lena is forced to make her own path, even if she has to do it alone. The passion and feeling of young love is written beautifully. You get just a taste to feel some of what the characters are feeling. That fleeting hint of young love and passion.

Pandemonium is a great follow-up to Delirium. The progress that Lena makes leads us effortlessly into book three without Pandemonium feeling like filler. I am anxiously awaiting the conclusion to this wonderful series.

*Spoilers for Delirium*
It's been more than a year since I read the first installment in this trilogy, Delirium, so I might not be in the best place to compare Pandemonium seeing as how my memories of the first are so fuzzy, but I feel pretty confident in saying that this is not only a good sequel, but a sequel that has improved upon the flaws of it's predecessor.

Now, since my computer has an infuriating virus, I need to write this review quickly, so I'll try to keep it pretty straightforward.

My feelings for the first were overall pretty positive. I liked Lauren Oliver's writing, I didn't think the romance was s***, after the first 100 pages I couldn't put it down, the characters were enjoyable enough for me to read about, but the world-building was garbage, plain and simple.

So, the world-building does improve a little bit, but not a whole lot, so if that is going to damage your reading experience of this tremendously, I wouldn't reccomend reading this. We do get a better look at how other areas of this world operate, but not so much that I could visualize this actually happening.

However, I guess that's why it's one of my guilty pleasure series (kind of like The Chemical Garden Trilogy by Lauren DeStefano). I know that it's not exactly great literature, and won't impact the way how I view the world or society as a whole, but reading it is pleasurable, and it's a story that I can invest myself in for the time I'm in it.

Lena has grown a large amount since the ending of the first book. She's not afraid to get down and dirty, and she isn't afraid to pull some punches in this book. She is still depressed over what happened at the end of the first book, where her little hope of having a happily ever after with Alex was obliterated, but it's not a depression that bogs down the book.

Seeing her pull this inner strength from within was amazing to read about, to be able to compare the Lena I was seeing now to the Lena from my memories. They're almost two completely different people, and I do think that Lauren Oliver did this intentionally when she wrote these books.

What I love about Lena is how strong she's become. No, it's not just how she can now punch somebody with ease, or that she can fight. It's because she survives emotional and physical trauma, and she finds it within herself to heal and get back up on her feet.

And then kick butt.

Julian is interesting. I don't think he's an amazing character, but I kind of like him, and his relationship with Lena seemed to progress rather naturally. It definitely wasn't insta-love, and perhaps it does progress maybe a little on the fast side, but not unrealistically so.

Also, those who were weary of the romance-heavy hand of Delirium need not worry when it comes to this book. Romance is definitely put on the backburner compared to the amount of action in this book. I know that sounds weird when the first book was esentially a romance, but this book really is more like an action book.

We have Lena constantly having to fight for her survival against the government, nature, and even the Invalids that she has joined. I do hope that this more action oriented angle does continue into the last book, since I was pleasantly surprised at Lauren Oliver writing an action scene at all, after having convinced myself that I would never see her write one.

Pacing is a large step-up. There is very little down-time, mainly because of how non-linear this book is. We're constantly flipping between the present and the time immediately following Lena's separation from Alex. This almost always promised one of the storylines to have action or some kind of element of the fast-paced variety.

I won't rave about Lauren Oliver's prose more than I have to. I'm just going to say it's beautiful.

The only negative aside from the lackluster world-building is the cliffhanger. It was obvious, but still a really cheap shot.

Even if it was obvious when the first book ended.

I'm sure by now you've probably read quite a few reviews for Pandemonium that go something like this "I couldn't possibly put my feelings for this book into words" or "What in the world just happened?!" And that pretty much sums it up. I'm not going to write my usual review for this one since I feel like basically anything I say would be a spoiler, but I will say that Lauren Oliver has written a solid sequel.

Everything about Pandemonium is a journey. There's literal journeys and emotional journeys and every last one of them are spectacular. Almost everything feels entirely real, like it actually could've happened on its own without too much luck.

It did feel a little stagnant at some parts, but I know that it can't always be about action and life-risking.

The Nutshell: Pandemonium is a fantastic sequel that is likely to satisfy (at least for the duration of the book) lovers of Delirium.

I loved this follow up to Delirium. And as a side note, I think you should read this series in order. The second book references Alex, an important character from the first book, and the dystopian society is gone into into much more detail in the first book - you see Lena living in it.=, and get to go through her emotions as she becomes more aware of other possibilities.

Now, in Pandemonium, Lena is a bit more clued in. She's tougher and stronger, but still retains some naivete, so her growth seems a natural progression - Lauren Oliver is a master at character development so I connected well with all the new people in this book. There's also a lot of action with just enough drama to make this book exciting! The twists and turns of the story, while slightly predictable at times, still drew me in and kept me reading well into the night. And that ending!!! Major cliffhanger alert! I for one HATE cliffhangers - but for some reason, this one left me excited to read the next book in the series, instead of annoyed and exclaiming in disgust, "No More!"

Good book. I enjoyed it as much or a little more than Delirium, it was more fast paced. However, so predictable. I knew what was going to happen, I wanted to knock Lena upside the head for missing things so obvious. I was still reading as fast as humanly possible, staying up late to finish it, so it is a good book and very interesting, just slightly predictable. I also feel like the (spoilers) love triangle is a bit.. eh... because I don't feel attached to either of them. I like one a bit more and don't really trust the other but neither relationship is very exciting. Doesn't mean I cannot wait to find out what happens....

The second book in the Delirium series shines where the first book only glittered. The book jumps between the present day and the past, which takes place directly after the end of book one.

Where the first book, Delirium, left a heavy feeling of deja vu, Pandemonium more than made up for it in originality. Once again the writing is a joy to read, the sentences well crafted and the characters believable.

The twists in the storyline were unexpected and left high expectations for book three.

For those who love a good dystopian book, Lauren Oliver delivers a gem not to be missed.

*Originally posted on goodreads

I have a theory. You see, I just finished Pandemonium ten minutes ago and couldn't stop thinking about it. I NEEDED to get my thoughts down on paper. This doesn't happen very often with book reviews. My theory is this: the Delirium trilogy is similar to a puzzle. In the first book, Lena is docile, weak, and meek. In this book, Lena is the exact opposite- hard, cold, and most of all ... angry. You can see this in the covers to the books- in the first, the colors are blue. The model is wide eyed and innocent looking. On the cover for Pandemonium- the model is fierce, picking the reader apart with her angry glare. The colors are orange, red, and the plants give the model a wild look to her.

Some may find this off-putting. Lena's personality seems to have made a complete 180 degree turn. But if you look at the big picture (and if my theory is correct), you can't look at one book without the other. This trilogy seems to be Lena's path to becoming a complete person. A person who has a balance of strong with weak, passion with common sense, and calmness with ferocity. A complete person. Delirium and Pandemonium are those complete opposites- and I really believe book three will be the book that ties them together.

As for the book itself, Lauren Oliver did a fantastic job! At first, I was bothered with how different Lena seemed since the last book (understandably so, but still?). About halfway through the book, I realized- Lena still doesn't have it figured out yet. She will, but she is still struggling to find a balance between the "wild" and the "order" in herself.

Yes, there is a second love interest, and yes he is important, but I don't really think that that is what Pandemonium is really about. Pandemonium is more about Lena's journey and how far into "wild" she is willing to go.

I hope you will all read this book when it comes out- and when you do get a chance to read it, hop back here and let me know if you agree with me. I, personally, can't wait for the third book. I applaud the author for her complex story lines and most of all- for making me think about what makes up a "good" person.

Do you guys remember how Delirium ended? Pretty freaking crazy, right? Definitely let me in shock and tears and with feelings of Noooooooooooooo!

So luckily, Pandemonium sort of picks up right after that, except it switches back and forth between Then (the end of Delirium) and Now (what present-day Lena is doing). And this is super interesting because it sets us up with two different storylines that sort of converge into present day and explain everything. Well, explain as much as Lauren Oliver wants us to know.

It's too hard for me to talk about the characters for several reasons. First off, I loved them all. I loved Lena and the new characters introduced - every single freaking one. The other reason is because I don't want to spoil anything! So let me just say, I love them all.

The storyline is just as intense and riveting as Delirium, although there was one moment towards the end that had me going "whaaaaaat are you serious" in an...interesting way. It was just weird. But really, Pandemonium is a tale of survival and revenge and, of course, love.

And guys, THE ENDING THE ENDING THE ENDING. Seriously Lauren Oliver, you had to do it AGAIN? These endings are killing me! My reaction to the ending was to gasp, reread, gasp, reread and then feaofjeoaifjeawopipejioafjeankxjvnj80wearuweaioj keyboard mash.

If you're a fan of Delirium, you're going to love Pandemonium. It's an epic follow-up to an epic book and I seriously cannot wait until Requiem, which doesn't come out until freaking February 2013.

Delirium was my favorite YA book of 2011. In fact, even after receiving an ARC copy, I went out and bought another copy so that I could have it in hardcover as well. This may be why I did not like Pandemonium-- because I had pretty stellar high expectations. Although the resistance is an interesting story line in theory, I found it to be pretty boring. Instead of Lena being a strong heroine, like I saw her finally become in Delirium with planning to run away, she spent a good portion of the book being held prisoner and simply hanging out with Julian. If Oliver was going to do a resistance book, it should have been like The Hunger Games where I was on the edge of seat wanting to know how it would end. I tried to like Julian because his back story was interesting, but I did not connect with him like I would have liked, and sometimes their relationship seemed forced. Even worse than not connecting with the characters, the "then" chapters were the worst part of the book and I found myself skimming through those chapters. But since I loved Delirium and since the most interesting part of the book happened on the last page I will happily pick up the 3rd to see how it ends.

Good cannot even come close to describing Pandemonium. The only time I was able (aka: I forced myself) to stop reading yesterday was when I went to volunteer. And then when I came home, I took my dinner into my room and ate while reading. That's how good this book is.

If you have not read Delirium yet, A) go do so right now, and B) you might need to stop reading this post because I will be talking about the end of book 1 in a few seconds.

Book 1 ended with Lena and Alex trying to escape. Alex pretty much sacrificed himself so Lena could get over the fence. And this all happened after Lena discovered that her mom wasn't dead all these years; she was imprisoned. And oh yeah, she escaped.

You know how a lot of YA books now go back and forth between the guy and girl characters? This book goes back and forth between two time periods for Lena: the time immediately following her dramatic escape and the time where she has joined the resistance and has been captured. Neither time period is really pleasant and both are filled with an enormous sense of loss and grief not just for Alex, but for everyone Lena has left behind to achieve freedom.

Each chapter goes back and forth between these two times. And I liked this because it let me know she survived all the earlier hardships she has to endure (like starvation, frost bite, depression, finding other invalids, etc.). And then once she finds other people (or more like they find her), she comes to a point where she really has to decide if she is capable of surviving while being so depressed, because surviving outside the loveless cities is hard; there's no technology, no good medicine, no furniture, no non-physical jobs, etc. We meet a group of other survivors who all have their own stories about escape. And probably my favorite character is Raven. I like that not everyone deals with hardship in the same way. And I feel like there is just enough hatred in these survivors for the cities they once lived in.

The future Lena is kidnapped after being told to keep an eye on Julian, the son of the head of a political movement in NY that is all about getting rid of deliria at an earlier age no matter what the risks. Forced to survive in a small room with someone who truly believes in the evil of love might just be the hardest thing Lena has ever done. Except, Lena is just so smart and resourceful and living in the wilds has taught her so much about survival. She soon befriends Julian and they share the stories of their lives (the good stories, the ones that involve love). And while outsmarting her captors, killing people, finding a deformed society living in the old subway tunnels, and holding strong to her cause, Lena slowly learns to deal with her grief about Alex, and learns to be capable of loving someone else.

This book never had a dull moment. Lena passes out from hunger. She watches children die. She camps out with others living in the wilderness and goes on long journeys to safe houses. She's never safe. She gets bombed at in both time periods. She gets captured. She learns about secret messages from sympathizers. She learns to keep moving always and not waste the life Alex so generously let her live. There's fighting, death, escape scenes, underground tunnels, entire societies of survivors and people who disagree with the cure, there's information about Lena's mother, friendship, politics, love, and I really can't say this book was missing anything.

The one and only negative thing I can say is that (like with the first one), I found a lot of the major actions/plot twists very predictable. Even the end (which I won't spoil) and involved a humongous twist, was an ending I was expecting. However, since Oliver is such a master at writing, it didn't really matter to me how much I predicted. I was still so mad at some moments, still so emotionally attached to certain characters, and still biting my fingernails at the end wanting Lena so badly to win.

I remember comparing book 1 to Westerfeld's and Condie's dystopias. And while I can still make that comparison with book 2, this one definitely branched out in its own direction and was able to make its own voice heard. I loved the writing style (with the two times). I loved the nonstop action. I loved that Lena's grief was so real and not too whiny, and not too overdone. I mean the girl was always almost about die; she didn't necessarily have a lot of time to whine. I loved her relationship with Julian and how much she could teach him. The politics were fascinating! And really, I was just so impressed here. Oliver has become an author to keep your eye on. I know she will only give us only more amazing books in the future. And she has become a master of cliffhangers! I need book 3 like right now! This gets a 10/10.

Okay, I have to start by saying that I truly did enjoy this book. It was a nice follow-up to DELIRIUM, and I'm just as eager to read REQUIEM as I was this one. PANDEMONIUM is filled with excellent characters, creative plot lines and deep emotion.

But, there are a couple of things I actually didn't like about it. (I know, I know...please don't stone me to death!)

First off, no Alex. :(

That's right. The soulful, brilliant, charming Alex from DELIRIUM is all but non-existent throughout 99.9% of PANDEMONIUM. I understand the reason--a reason expertly shown through Lena's pain and heartbreak over her loss--but it didn't make Alex's absence hurt any less. One of the best things about DELIRIUM was the building relationship between Lena and Alex, and it was by far the thing I was looking forward to most in the sequel. So to say I was disappointed with this aspect is putting it mildly.

Second...the jump between THEN and NOW.

Don't get me wrong, I love when chapters alternate between characters or settings. And sometimes, even jumping from one time to another can be fun. But I was excited for the story to pick up right where it left off. Normally I don't even blink when the second book in a series jumps ahead (I do that myself in my own writing, so I completely get it) to move the plot to a more stable point for book two. But that final, heart-pounding, almost seizure-inducing scene in DELIRIUM was so intense and frantic and totally out of left field, I was desperate to find out what happened next. Unfortunately, we never got to "see". We were told through Lena's memories and pain (beautifully done, btw) of that fateful night, but the action and emotion I felt when I finished the last page of book one wasn't there. And I missed it!

Also, there was a time gap from THEN to NOW, which took some of the tension (IMO) from the THEN chapters. Kind of like when the main character begins telling their story with "This is about the night I almost died"or something similar. On page one, I know how the story ends...so why read it? (note: that did not happen with this book--I enjoyed every page!)

I know you're probably thinking that after such a downtrodden review, his rating is going to stink! Well you can rest easy...I happily give PANDEMONIUM 4 stars. Though a tad different in its style, PANDEMONIUM is still a beautifully written novel full of all the things that make fiction great. And as I said at the beginning of this review, I'm just as excited to read REQUIEM. Particularly after that final page! ;P

May contain some spoilers!!
I wasn't too thrilled with Pandemonium. To me it felt like a big letdown. Like others have mentioned, it took a while for the book to get going. Needless to say, I was quite bored till about the middle of the book. I didn't like the book being split up into Now and Then sections. The minute something good was happening, it would switch to the Then and you were left hanging for a few minutes till the story picked up again in the Now. I kept waiting to hear more about Alex, but that never came either. It's been so long since book one that I don't remember much about Lena and Alex's relationship. I really liked Julien's character. It seems realistic for them to have fallen in love after being kidnapped, thrown into small quarters, having their life threatened, and saving each other's life. What is Lena supposed to do...mourn Alex's death for the rest of her life. I mean, were Alex and her even going out for that long?
The best part of the story for me was the end. The book finally picked up and I found myself not skimming over the book as much. Lena finding out she already met her mother was a great twist and I look forward to reading more about her mother's story. I do not like the characters being placed in another love triangle!! Alex showing up at the end didn't really surprise me one bit. I'm sick of the YA triangles...don't want this to turn into another Team Jacob/Edward or Team Peeta/Gale...so over it!! But needless to say, I will be reading the third book.

When Lena escaped into the wilds, she ended up alone and devastated by the loss of her newfound love, Alex. She is taken in by a rebel group at a homestead in an abandoned town, and struggles to recover emotionally and physically as best as she can. Life is hard as a rebel, and it only gets harder as Lena is drawn into a more active role in the resistance, getting close to Julian, son of an anti-love activist. When the two are abducted and must figure out how to escape unscathed, working together uncovers secrets...and feelings that Lena didn't think she'd ever feel again.

Lauren Oliver's second book in the Delirium trilogy is just as emotional, intense, and action-packed as the first. Oliver picks up right where Delirium leaves off, with Lena at an all-time low. To have a strong heroine who has overcome so much be dealt such a blow is hard to read about, but readers will find Pandemonium nearly impossible to put down. Oliver keeps the book from being gloomy by hopping back and forth between Lena's recovery and her undercover role months later back in society, racketing up the suspense and tension with each chapter. Oliver's plotting is extremely clever, from escape routes to secret codes and hidden intentions, and she always manages to work in a plot twist when you least expect it. Lena's relationship with Julian is different from the one she had with Alex--it's much more tentative and complicated, yet no less vivid and heartfelt. Those stolen romantic moments are almost as sweet as the tantalizing glimpses of other long lost characters. Pandemonium certainly lives up to its title with its constant action and relationships in a state of flux, but small triumphs and moments of happiness do exist amongst the chaos. Oliver conclude the novel with a cliffhanger ending that will irrevocably change the life that Lena has managed to build for herself, and readers will be desperate for the next book in this beautifully written and emotionally wrought series.

Cover Comments: I like how this cover is in the same style as the new Delirium cover, and I do think it;s really pretty, though it doesn't exactly fit the story.

Pandemonium gives us a look at Lena after six months in the wilds and flashbacks to how she survived and got to where she is and survived to return to civilization with a new identity. We see Lena grow stronger than ever as a person and how she will not be controlled. This book lets us learn more about the cure and how society may not be just as it seems. The story line continues on how the world would be without love and all the problems it causes. It likens society to being full of zombies but not the horror movie kind, it's the mind control type. So if you have not read Delerium then do not read this book yet. You must read Delerium first!!!

Fresh off her heart breaking escape from Lena's love lobotomizing society, she discovers the freedoms of the Wilds. And all the chores that come with them. Turns out she was pretty pampered in the enclosed cured community. Life on the outside is hard, hard work, little food, and lots of casualties.

But as the resistance is rising, the cured have renewed their efforts in eliminating the invalids, forcing Lena and her new friends to re-assimilate into the Manhattan colony. Lena soon finds herself in the middle of a conspiracy and finding love in the most unlikely places.

Lauren Oliver's Pandemonium is an eloquently written mess of thoughts and details strung together to form a coherent character and world in a very unique way. I think the sequel exceeds Delirium in story and structure. I always felt the eradication of love as a main motivator a little flimsy, and it was the linchpin that held everything together in the first book. In Pandemonium the story focuses less on the cure, in favor of a more active plot line. Plus Oliver needed less time working on world building and character establishment so she could focus on a more complex plot without sacrificing the romance and lyrical flow of her writing fans of the series love. Some of the pacing in the beginning was slow, but it gained momentum as Lena grew stronger. A few lingering questions were answered, but with them came more inquiries that are sure to bring readers back for the next installment.

Sarah Drew's performance of Pandemonium was good. Her portrayal of Lena was nice, maybe a bit dramatic at times, but she really knows how to capture the angst of teenage melodrama. I think her choices in voicing Julian was better than how she speaks for Alex, but overall she does a fine job with the series.

I'm going to be honest: I was really nervous about this one. I thought that the first had ended so flawlessly, that final paragraph where she's running and remembering what her mother said... Oh, my heart took flight. I have to say that I can't decide now which book I like better! I was shocked and delighted with the second installment.
I felt that she didn't really mourn (spoiler alert if you haven't read Delirium) her lost love. I would have liked to have heard some of those beautiful descriptions that Lauren Oliver does on teenage heartbreak and woe.
I loved seeing the daily life. It's like everyone wants a get-in-get-out-constant-action-novel. I want someplace where I can go and escape, somewhere I can picture people living day-to-day. She really shows us the Wilds and its way of life.
I loved the second half of the book. Life goes on! Thank you! He may be gone but that doesn't mean your young life is over! There are others!
And the ending. I won't give anything away but I saw that cliche coming and I just didn't care. It was odd, I usually roll my eyes at books like these but I think that the way the world is opened up and given to us in such a beautiful way just... makes it.
This is my kind of book.

Alert: May contain spoilers and you most assuredly need to read Delirium before continuing!

I am telling you people, I am turning out to be a real sucker for the second book in a series. I loved Pandemonium, book 2 in the Delirium Series by Lauren Oliver. First of all, while Delirium was a good story, the writing was a little flat for me, but Oliver remedied that in Pandemonium. She takes on a "Now" and "Then" story telling style that sprinkles all of the action and "aha" moments into the exposition of the story line. This keeps things moving at a faster pace, the lag time to a minimum and works well with the fickle human nature, as you are continually wanting to get back to the previous account to see what is happening-like mini "to-be-continueds". And then the end...A cliffhanger of all cliff hangers. I mean Lauren Oliver, is this what you want, fans to be tortured. All I am saying is that I am currently in the process of seeing if I can get my hands on an ARC through a connection of mine. The possibility is remote, but still there. Let's hope Oliver continues at this clip with book 3, Requiem due out March 5, 2013.
Now for the characters. I love how Lena is painted through out this story. She was a small town girl, confined by her limited experience and then thrust out into the great beyond without much to go on. I love the new found strength Lena carries with her, but you also get a sense of her naivete as she moves through the action and hubbubary of the story. I appreciate that Oliver did not turn Lena into this all-knowing survivalist and savvy political activist. Refreshing...
Now for Julian. I wasn't sure, if I was going to even like this book because you spend all of Delirium falling in love with Alex and now you have to start all over hoping and wondering if and when he will appear again. Then you meet Julian, and you are like, "Who is this cold-hearted, unloving drone that has to tag along with me in my story. Get this emotionless Zombie out of my way, Julian you are the fly in my ointment!"
But....
Don't get me wrong, I love Alex, I do...It's just...in the end...I don't hate Julian...I might even like him a little...O.K., fine...I'm caught in the love triangle myself as controversial as that may be with Delirium fans. There I said it, I am right there with Lena, sucked in and completely confuzzled on what to do. But then again, as I have said before, I do love a good love triangle!

My one reservation is that there are some potty mouths in this book, so some might gasp a few times at the expletives in this young adult novel.

My Thoughts: DO NOT READ THIS REVIEW IF YOU HAVEN'T READ DELIRIUM. AND IF YOU HAVEN'T, WHAT ARE YOU WAITING FOR????

Uh, I'll start this review off with what I wrote on goodreads as soon as I finished.

If you thought Delirium was great you will be blown away by Pandemonium. I wish I had the next book. OMG. I want to both cry and scream right now.....

Why, why, why did I read this so soon? LOL

I had a feeling it was going to end like that but to actually have it happen is going to drive me nuts now since I don't have the next book.

WOW WOW WOW WOW WOW WOW

So, that was my initial thoughts when I updated my goodreads status.

Do I still feel that way? Yes, Yes, Yes.

We start off in the Now part of the book. For 2 pages, than we are thrown into the Than part. Confused yet?

We are reunited with Lena. She has escaped to the Wild's without Alex. Oh, I'm sure you remember that dreadful ending in Delirium and Alex is still nowhere in sight. Lena suspects he's dead even though she doesn't want to say it out loud. She imagines he's still with her and goes out on her own.

She ends up being on her own for a few days until a group of others come across her and take her in, nursing her back to life. Let me tell you about my favorite characters. There is Raven, who seems to be a few years younger than Lena, but has become one of the leaders of the group and takes care of everything. Than there is Blue, who is just a little girl. I really liked Blue but she reminded Lena too much of Grace. Next up is Hunter. Hunter's a sweet guy who is friendly to Lena from the start. Than there is Tack. Tack is independent, strong willed, and tough. He always has a scowl on his face. Of course, there are many more characters but these are just a few of my favorites.

Lena survives in the wild with the group for a while. She learns to get supplies, learns to wash clothes by hand, to carry water buckets, how to cook, the whole nine yards. She does what she must to survive and stay a part of their group.

Than we are thrust into a whole other world. The future tense. What is happening NOW. Lena is working with Raven to take down the DFA. They are the ones who want everyone to be cured. We meet Julian right away. He is the son of the person who thinks love must be cured. He is due to have his procedure soon.

Lena and Julian end up getting captured during one of the meetings and thrown in a room together. They spend days in that room, getting to know each other slowly and awkwardly. They think they have nothing in common at first except that she has been cured (she lies) and he is to be cured soon. He wants to know what it will feel like, will all temptations be taken away? Will he feel like a different person?

Lena and Julian end up escaping and make their journey to find Raven and Tack. In the process, Julian is taken back by his father, and set to have his procedure. Of course Lena doesn't think its right to make him have this procedure. He should have a choice, a real choice.

Well, I don't want to give away anymore spoilers. That was already a few and I didn't want to give away any!

Do we ever see Alex again? Let me just say this, the information we find out about Alex and Lena's mom is insane. It was crazy intense. This whole book was so great. It was full of action, fast paced, and just a wonderful story. I wish I had the third book now.

The Than and Now back and forth chapters were a little confusing at first, but I got right into it. The bad thing is, I didn't like skipping back and forth because Oliver pulls you into one than you want to know what happens in that situation, than your thrust into the other situation. I'm sure that was her point, but I was on pins and needles the whole book. (Which is a good thing HAHA)

I loved Delirium and I was left crying at the end. I loved Pandemonium even more, and I was left wanting to cry but at the same time, wanting to tell her how genius she is!

For all you Alex fans out there, you won't be completely disappointed however you won't be happy either. I was totally in love with Alex but throw another guy in the mix, and I'm as confused as ever. Love Triangle anyone?

Overall: Oh My Gosh. I absolutely loved it. Can I marry this book? This was one of my favorite books I've read of 2011!!!

Cover: Really like it. Delirium had a cool cover, but so does this one.

What I'd Give It: 5/5 Cupcakes
____________

Review Based On Hardcover Edition

Taken From Princess Bookie

Pandemonium is the captivating sequel to Delirium. Love is considered a disease and when people come of age they undergo a procedure that keeps them from falling in love.. In Delirium, Lena is looking forward to her procedure because she felt it would keep her safe. That is until she meets Alex and falls in love. Eventually she risks everything to leave her home and escape with Alex to the Wilds. But they were caught. Lena made it over the fence, Alex did not.

Pandemonium picks up after Lena makes it over the fence. I really enjoyed Pandemonium and in a lot of ways, I liked it better than Delirium. There is more intrigue, drama and action. It is an exciting read- I kept wondering where it was all heading. I will say though, I saw the ending coming. I think a lot of people probably will feel the same way. But it didn't take away from my enjoyment of the book. It also ends in a doozy of a cliffhanger. Which is a little frustrating. It is like a tv shows when it ends at a critical moment and the screen cuts to "To Be Continued..." Argh!

In a lot of ways, I feel Pandemonium is a very different book than Delirium. Where Delirium is dreamy and languid, Pandemonium is crisp and straightforward. Delirium felt slow at times but Pandemonium is all action and tight storytelling. In Delirium, the storytelling is linear, but in Pandemomium the narration flips between "Now" where Lena is working for the Resistance posing as a high school student in New York City and "Then" which chronicles Lena's first days in the Wilds.

Instead of watching the plot unfold, Pandemonium starts near the end and works backwards to show us how Lena got to be where she is now. We now find Lena to be a very different person. In Delirium she is confused and second guessed herself. In Pandemonium she has no time to second guess herself. She becomes harder and stronger because of the difficulties she faces. She learns to take control and to kick a little butt. I like the new Lena!

If you liked Delirium, then Pandemonium is a must. If you haven't read Delirium then you will need to read it before Pandemonium. There is not a lot of recapping and you will miss most of the key plot points if you don't start at the beginning. I can't wait until the third book in the series! Do I really have to wait a year??

Warning: Ready to shoot myself over this cliff hanger! So if this review is a little rambly (Yes making up my own word here) please don't take it out on me. I've just finished reading so I'm still getting over the book =)

As you all know Pandemonium is the companion novel to the one and only Delirium. Which I hope you also all know that I liked it I'm just not a fan of these huge cliff hangers! So anyway the story is Love is illegal. If you fall in love your diagnosed with Deliria and basically if you get it they cure you but if they believe it's gone to deep they lock you up. Lena the main character of course in the beginning is following the rules and is going about getting her cure but then she meets Alex whom she falls in love with and that is where I stop telling you about the story if you want to know more go read it!

Lena is a really cool character because at first she's not a rebel at all. She's scared of not following the rules and getting in trouble because of what happened to her mother. But she does over come her fears and fall in love which I'm glad about because everyone deserves to fall in love at least once because it truly is an amazing feeling.

Now let me say what happened in this book I was so not ready for. But it wasn't totally hard to handle until the end which I can't talk about because I can't spoil it, but one of the things that I really liked about Pandemonium is all of the new characters. The big ones in particular are Raven she is the mother basically in the story she takes care of Lena when she's sick and hurt and gives her a place to sleep and be when she needs it the most. Raven basically gives Lena a whole new family.

Next up we have Tack who we don't see a whole lot of but after they break apart from the other half of the group he Is the one that stays with Raven & Lena. He's sort of the hard headed guy who just wants to take care of his friends well family. We don't find out much about his past but I feel like he must have had a lot of heart break for him to be like that. I think it would be really interesting to have a little side story about Raven & Tack just like Lauren did one for Hana because I feel like there's something more to the two of their characters.

Lastly the character that I didn't want to but I fell in love with is Julian. Now love is banned through out the whole book and the point is that Lena is falling in love anyways but this love is different because she's falling in love with the other side all most and I'm not going to elaborate on that again because of spoilers but I think you get the point. Julian is this sweet guy whose had a really rough life and he just wants to be left alone he doesn't want to risk his life with surgery anymore he doesn't want to hate his dad anymore he just wants to be normal and I have to say I think Julian deserves it because even though he's supposed to be on the other side he still understands Lena's side.

Overall I give Pandemonium 4.5 out of 5 stars and the reasoning for that is because I can't get over these crazy cliffhangers because it just brings the end of the story down for me. The only good thing about it is that I need to get my hands on the next book now!

I loved Pandemonium--perhaps even more because I was one of the few who didn't like Delirium very much. I am glad the flowery, beautiful writing was toned down to more manageable levels to allow room for action without dragging the pace down, which was my main problem with Delirium. The quotations in the beginning of Delirium's chapters have disappeared (honestly, I wasn't a big fan of them), instead chapters are separated into Then and Now. I was pleasantly surprised with the new format, it allowed a break between tense moments and to give the readers backstory without a deluge of flashbacks or the dreaded info-dump. Lena learns to be more independent: she learns to take initiative, and decide things for herself.

World-building: Finally, Can I Get Some Answers?
Well, at least I know where some of the outcasts go and about how far the reign of deliria spans. But I still don't buy the society completely: it's further reinforced that the people can't feel hate, are zombies, and are fueled by fear. You can hardly blame them, the choice is clear: you get cured, or you get thrown in prison (or beat to a pulp.) I don't know how the society would function if nobody cared about others; if people are naturally "no better than animals," then we wouldn't hesitate to wreck havoc. But I am also starting to understand the utopian concept: is love worth sacrificing if it also takes away hate? As long as you comply with the rules in this society, you will survive and be protected. Sure, you may not have "love," but you will have a shirt on your back, a comfty bed, and food.
Unfortunately, the creation of this society is still a mystery so I'm sticking my theory that it was created by a group of lonely, butthurt cat ladies.

Then:
The "Then" chapters are Lena's backstory right after her escape into The Wilds. She meets a group of Invalids, and she quickly learns how to survive in the Wilds. At first, her refusal to help out under the excuse that she was too weak completely appalled me since she admits to feeling guilty and selfish. I felt it was only right for her to at least try to help out instead of being dead weight. The Wilds is a brutal place where survival comes at a cost, a lesson Lena is forced to learn. I began to suspect it was because Lena was fearful of going outside. Perhaps Oliver wanted to show Lena's growth from a selfish, whiny girl to an strong, independent woman. Lena reveals that she can self-reflect, she knows when she is immature--and she fixes herself. The ability to admit to one's flaws and do something about it makes Lena so much more likable.

Now:
Most people say the Now chapters were more exciting, but I honestly can't decide between the two. I can see why the Now chapters may be much more enthralling because it is unpredictable. You know for sure Lena is going to make it out fine from the Then chapters (because if she didn't there wouldn't be Now chapters), but I still wanted to see how the two stories intersected.
The Now chapters are filed with much more action with Lena as a spy for The Resistance. Unfortunately, her stint as a spy doesn't last very long when she is captured and locked up in a room underground. Her journey out of that room is a testament to how much Lena has grown. And I'm loving it!

Romance:
With Alex out of the picture, I wasn't sure what would happen: would Lena be depressed and lovelorn, or will she get another beau? Turns out she does have another lover. I definitely liked the romance between Julian and Lena a lot more than the one with Alex (to be honest, I thought a lot of Lena's feelings toward Alex was fueled by infatuation and first love.) I suspect it's because Alex was too mysterious and flat for me to like--while Julian was fleshed out. He had his flaws, his backstory, and his weaknesses. The best part was that Lena wasn't the confused, damsel-in-distress anymore. HALLELUJAH! In fact, I think Lena was the stronger one, though Julian does have buff muscles (even though I don't know where he got them since he seems to be on the wimpy side.)
Lena also loves to pick the wrong love candidates: she has to pick the son of Thomas Fineman (Delirium Free America's leader.) Another forbidden love story served on a silver platter. I was surprised at how easy it was to "unbrainwash" Julian since he was raised by the leaders of the entire deliria movement. I'm secretly expecting him to go rogue at any moment. And yes, he has eyes that seem to constantly change colors. Oliver must have an affinity with eyes. Apparently they can't be just boring brown blobs.

I'm Way Too Good At Guessing These Plot Twists:
You'd have to be pretty oblivious not to know what's up with all these obvious "plot twists." Honestly, I'm not sure if Lena is so smart anymore. At least one of them was just screaming at me: seriously, why would someone make you carry a 600 page book without other intentions? And if Coin's name was a flashing red light.
As for Lena's mother--I don't know how I knew. Maybe because I sensed that she had to be in the book somehow? Or was I subconsciously hinted at with foreshadowing?

Ending (OMG, EPIC CLIFFHANGER MOMENT...but really, we all knew it was coming):
CLIFFHANGER ALERT! I knew it was coming, but it did make me excited for Requiem. Though I know some are going to be frustrated.

I'm glad Pandemonium didn't suffer from second-book syndrome. Most people expect the middle book to be a bridge between the first and last book, but I'm pleased that Pandemonium built from its first book, Delirium (which now that I think about it was just intro material) to give readers a very welcome surprise. Even if you didn't like Delirium, Pandemonium will change your mind. The action, the plot twists, the heart-stopping tension definitely makes Pandemonium an irresistible pageturner.

Delirium was my favorite book of the year back in 2010 when I read it. It surpassed every single other book that I read before it, and honestly I haven't read a book that made me feel like that since. You know that feeling I'm talking about. It's what readers live for, right? Being consumed by a story. Living and breathing it in those few hours or days that you are reading it. Books that just blow you away and leave you in awe for days afterward. That was Delirium for me. That's some back story for you, so that you understand just how much Pandemonium meant to me.

I'm going to start off by saying this is going to be a terribly hard book to review. I don't want to spoil the first book or this book. So this will probably be vague at best. If you've read Delirium you probably have one huge question for Pandemonium. I did. It was something that I needed know. I had hoped and wished and wondered about it often in the year between reading these books. But ultimately I was surprised, but not the way I thought I was going to be. No, I was surprised that when I started this book I stopped wondering. It's a testament to Lauren Oliver's writing that she could make me forget about that burning question for awhile. I was so captivated by this new hard and scary world that Lena was living in that Alex became a afterthought. That really, really surprised me.

Don't get me wrong he was always in my mind, because he was always in Lena's. Just glimpses and small passages full of such longing and emotion it would bring tears to my eyes. But Lena's life is very different in this book. She has became hard and so strong. Really this second book was much more about getting to know Lena. And I must say that I love what I saw. She is so complex and well written.

There are some new characters introduced. Some I loved, some infuriated me. All of them were pivotal. Once again Oliver's writing makes me feel something that I didn't think was possible. I can't say what that is, but when you read it you will know.

I'm almost done, I promise! The book is written in a very different kind of format. A Then and Now format. This made the book super intense. There was always some horrifying action happening. It was completely impossible to put down. As far as sequels go this is a incredible one. It's not at all what I was expecting. It ended up being so much more.

The ending did not destroy me like Delirium`s, but I might be destroyed a different way. By questions. Lots and lots of questions. There's also a tiny bit of frustration too. Because that is not how I wanted things to play out, but I'm going to leave it in Lauren Oliver's capable hands. I trust that she will get us where we need to be in Requiem. Overall, I don't think I could have asked for a better sequel to a book that I loved beyond measure. Lauren Oliver is a master of her craft.

Really? That is the end? Why must you continue to do this to me, Lauren Oliver? Oh the wait is going to kill me!

Okay now for my review!

Pandemonium is an amazing follow-up to Delirium but I expected no less from Lauren Oliver. Pandemonium was a lot darker than Delirium and that I did not expect. It was still greatly enjoyable but be warned: there are not many happy moments in this book. Still, in my opinion, it was better than Delirium.

Lena's life changed completely when she lost Alex and had to go into the Wilds alone. She became a much harder person, more likely to hate than love. Of course she wasn't alone in the Wilds for long. She was found by Raven and welcomed into her homestead. There she met Tack, Blue, Hunter, Squirrel, Grandma, Grandpa, Lo, Sarah, and Miyako. They made her part of their family and Lena started to move on with her life. Things changed though. The resistance became more forceful and the Wilds were no longer safe. Lena had a choice: to stay in the Wilds until death finally caught up with her or to go back to the cities and stand up with the resistance. Of course she chose the resistance but she never expected to fall in love with the enemy.

There was a lot of death in Pandemonium and I definitely teared up at each and every loss. It seemed like every time things would look up for Lena something bad would happen again. I loved how strong she was but I loved even more to see her breakdown. She is such a human character and that is what makes her awesome.

The plot in this one was very different from Delirium. Right from the start you are hooked because there is so much going on. Also, each chapter is either Now or Then, Then being right after Lena made it into the Wilds. It made for a very interesting story and I liked the way it was told. It wasn't confusing at all which I was originally worried about.

Overall, Pandemonium is a must-read if you liked Delirium. It is action-packed, brutally real, and at times, super sweet. And that ending! The wait for Requiem really might kill me. =)

Pandemonium builds upon the great start in Delirium with a great mixture of well-thought out plot, real character development, and deeper delving into the powerful theme. I especially liked the switching between the "Then" and "Now" chapters. This accomplished two things. It ensured that there were not too many pages of consecutive 'background', often switching between important background in one time-setting to action in the other. The author also used this masterfully to provide the reader the information they needed when they needed it, rather than too far back that they wouldn't remember. It was a very well executed delivery method and helped the story build to its climax.

I am in LOVE! Seriously! I feel like I am in love! I went to bed thinking about Pandemonium and I woke up thinking about it as well! I can't seem to get it off my mind! I know I love a book once I'm done with it when I replay scenes over and over again in my mind!

We all know, well at least those of us who read Delirium, how it ended. That ending broke thousands of hearts. I was kind of shattered. In Pandemonium, we see Lena's struggles in the Wilds and see how she moves past the tragedy that is Alex. I had my heart shattered all over again within the first few pages. The hurt and grief for Lena is still very, very knew at that point, so I was tearing up and aching for her at the same moments.

Pandemonium is told in alternating then and now chapters...it's done VERY well. It didn't bother me one bit. I found myself at the beginning of the book, reading the NOW chapters fast because I really wanted to read the THEN chapters. As the story went on, I found myself reading the THEN chapters fast because all of the really good stuff was in the NOW chapters. I'm surprised I enjoyed the chapters like this.

I only read one review of this book before I read it. I kind of wanted to go into this book without having read too many reviews. This one reviewer stated that she couldn't believe she was able to fall in love with another boy after Alex. I can't believe I was able to as well. Just WOW.

The last 80 pages for me were difficult to read. Not because I thought the story was bad, but because I didn't want the book to end and I was totally afraid of what was going to happen. I will admit. I guessed the ending of this book...well one part at least. Did I find the ending predictable? Yes, obviously. I still couldn't believe it happened after it happened though. Even though I just KNEW it was coming I still was shocked and thrown off guard. I NEED to get my hands on Requiem as soon as I am able to! I'm already jonsen for more of this beautiful world and the characters Lauren Oliver has created!

When I first began this book, I was concerned. The first one-third of the book did not draw me in. Whereas Delirium ended with my heart somewhere in my throat, Pandemonium just laid there, almost as if Lauren Oliver did not know what direction to go in or what story she wanted to tell.

By the middle of the book, the story settles down a bit and you are right there with Lena and Julian as they fight for their futures. But the last 100 or so pages, you heart is right back there in your throat as you turn the pages and wonder along with Lena what the future could possibly hold. Then bam, you are at an ending that I did not see coming, but fully wondered if it was possible.

In book two, Lauren Oliver sends you in a slightly different direction; Lena is now emotionally alone in the Wilds and with the help of a ragtag group, moves along to her new future still mourning her past life with Alex. Told in a then and now style, the reader sees where Lena is in her present day and shows slowly and methodically how she got there. How Julian, the son of the DFA leader, can be both her nemesis and her salvation. How Lena must open her eyes and realize that not all people are as they appear, that she is being told only little bits and pieces of the whole story and that quite possibly what she thought was the truth might just be part of an even bigger lie.

An author can make or break a trilogy with the second book. They may know where they want to end, but getting from part A to Part C is a challenge. By the climax of this book, I think that Ms. Oliver served her characters well. The resistance is growing, characters are coming in and out of Lena's life that influence her in innumerable ways, but most importantly, Lena is discovering that if she tries, there might be a life for her after Alex -- that was, until she heard the voice from behind the door.

Pandemonium picks up right where Delirium left off with Lena escaping over the border fence into the Wilds, with Alex stuck on the other side and possibly dead. The book is told in alternating chapters on two different timelines, one follows Lena during the time directly after her escape as she settles with a group in the Wilds. The other is Lena's present, where she is working undercover for the Resistance (an anti-government organization) in New York. I think the author was smart to switch the timeline in the chapters, even though the Wilds chapters were less interesting to me than the New York chapters but they were necessary because the Lena in New York is a lot different than the Lena in Delirium and that is because of the time she spent in the wilds. The tone and pacing of this book were a lot different than Delirium which had a sort of dream like quality to it. Lena was very poetic and thoughtful, but not much for action. The chapters moved slowly, and focused on Lena's changing perspectives on Deliria, the government and her life. Pandemonium feels more mobile and fast, Things are happening, and even though Lena still has some poetic sections, for the most part she is more focused on getting things done, whether that means surviving the Wilds or resisting in the city. Because of the back and forth chapters, I was kind of confused; Since they are mixed, I ended up getting about 2/3 of the way through the story and feeling like I hadn't really read much, then a lot happened all at once. Now that I think about it, a lot happened earlier in the book during the New York chapters, but I think the Wilds chapters in between threw off my perception of what was happening. I don't know how to explain it, I just know that when I got to the end of the book I felt a little confused, like the ending came all of a sudden. Over all, I enjoyed the book. I liked the style of writing in Pandemonium more than in Delirium and I liked its flow. I thought it was good, and I'm interested to see what happens in the next book.

I believe this is the first time in which I am delighted for such a cliffhanger ending! I tell you, the ending made my day, truly! and without a doubt, Oliver writes beautifully. But Pandemonium was a bit dragging on the first half. Things picked up on the second half but it is still not enough. Unfortunately for me, Alex being a flimsy shadow in this book is a blow I found so hard to take.

Lena has grown to be a warrior, courtesy of the harshness of the Wilds. She became hardened by her uncomfortable new life and hateful by Alex's demise. It was not the life she intended to live when she ran to the Wilds. It was a good thing that Oliver did not shelter Lena's character too much. She developed Lena dramatically. Lena has to make the toughest decisions in order to survive. The one thing I did not like: Lena succumbed early to grief without assessing the facts. Is it less painful for her to accept that Alex is gone than finding a way to know what really happened to him?

I think the concept of DFA is unnecessary. The dystopian element is not as direct as I expect it would be. It is more like delving with the effects of a society hell-bent on maintaining order despite the impending chaos.

Pandemonium is very far from Delirium's delivery. It is not a personal favorite but I urge Delirium fans to read it still. I am a fan of Alex so naturally, I am resentful of this sequel. Requiem will decide whether I will love this series or not. So Ms. Oliver, I am sincerely hoping you do not disappoint me for I am majorly invested emotionally with your series. By the way, that ending: I freakin' love it! Serves you right, Lena. *snickers*

I have never been so inspired and heart broken by the ending of a book. Seriously. Why can't main characters ever be happy for more than five minutes? I've started to dread the ending of books in a series because I know that sometime awful is going to happen RIGHT at the end.

That being said, this book is gorgeous. If Delirium pushed the limits of dystopia when it created the slightly stereotypical us versus them trope but it went horribly wrong, this took that stereotype, ripped it in half, and shoved it down the garbage disposal. The main character is a complete survivor, doing anything (often things I am repulsed or sickened by) to stay alive and free ON HER OWN TERMS.

Maybe that's why I like it so much. It isn't just that she escapes the government to seek freedom; she runs away from anyone who tries to tell her how to live her life or to change her. She refuses to give up her agency to ANYONE, not even the people who are supposedly "free". It's hard for me to respect a main character as much as I respect Lena.

Of course there's angsty romance, but in a way I find rather beautiful. It's not, "and then we spent three days together and now we are in love!" More like, "We shared an extremely traumatic experience that created a link between us, and somewhere along that link I could see us falling in love." Really beautiful, and very realistic.

I have serious respect for Oliver. Even if I hate her and want to shake her and beg her WHY DID SHE DO THIS TO LENA WHY ISN'T THE NEXT BOOK OUT HOLY GOD. So much respect. And loathing. And adoration.

I really feel like I was in this world. I got very absorbed and couldn't put it down. I will warn that there is moderate to strong language scattered throughout for those concerned with language. The characters were well thought out and deep. The descriptions made me feel like I was there without too many words wasted on the descriptions. Excellent.

Pandemonium is the second in a trilogy planned by Lauren Oliver, who writes so well that one keeps reading just to see what happens next. However, this novel has a different mood from the first. Delirium was fast paced and a "couldn't put it downer" while Pandemonium is a more reflective approach.

The novel picks up where the first ended when Lena wakes up in the Wilds after leaving Alex behind to be captured and probably killed. The author explores Lena's feelings about him in depth as well as her regret in leaving the "safe" life she once endured. As Lena learns to live in the Wilds and bonds with the rebels who rescue her she matures as well. In the first novel she was more needy and dependent while in this one she gradually becomes aggressive at times as well as an independent thinker willing to sacrifice for her own beliefs.

I liked Raven, leader of the rebel group that rescued the wounded Lena. She is tough and pragmatic yet shows a softer side when she thinks no one can see it. What I didn't like was how the group "used" Lena to rescue Julian but I understand that it was necessary to the character the author developed. The interactions between Lena and Julian were sensitive but I felt that Lena's feelings for Julian developed far too quickly for one who seemed so much in love with another.

Yes, parts of this novel are predictable but exciting nevertheless. While I suspected the ending, it nevertheless prompted me to put the novel among my future reads. I just can't wait to see what happens to these interesting characters.

I liked this one much better than the first one - see my review here - though I'm still a little skeptical on how it could work and how it would have ever come to be. This time around it seemed more like it was just the "bad" people versus the "good" people so I was able to put my skepticism aside. It was a quick read and I was really engrossed in the story. I'm not sure how much I liked going back and forth between "then" and "now", but it does leave a sense of anxiety that you might not have had if it was just set out chronologically. The ending isn't a big surprise either. However, I did enjoy the book and I look forward to installment #3 whenever it comes out!

Recommended to fans of YA books.

Just finished listening to Delerium again so I could remember all the little details of the story. Such heartbreak at the end when Alex is left behind. In Pandemonium, Lena forges onward in a story moving back and forth from "Then" to "Now." It is six months after she enters the Wilds and she battles the elements and sometimes others people in her attempt to survive. But we also learn of her life as an infiltrator. She meets a young man, Julian, who is about to get the operation but they end up hiding from government agents together instead. Will the sweet romance be enough to hold them together? You know you want to read this book...get yourself to the library or a bookstore and get going!

Okay, so in the interest of giving the writer the benefit of the doubt, I am going to give this book three stars, because she did a good job with the writing, technically speaking. the prose was good, and the characters (mostly) were solid. ish. Here is the reason I couldn't give this five stars: If you are going to write in the dystopian genre, there is already massive pressure to run with the big dogs, or not run at all. Yes, yes, I know it's taboo to compare to The Hunger Games, but hey, that's the standard, and it's what the dystopian genre has to live up to now.

But did there have to be such a massive and dramatic change in personality that we the readers didn't really know or like the heroine we fell in love with? Yes, she was unceremoniously dumped into a much rougher living situation in the Wilds. Yes, she thinks Alex is dead and gone. (Did she even go back to look though? No.
So that turns those emotions as flimsy as her secondary "romance" which I will get to in a minute.)
Lena's personality and to a large extent her outlook on life are all roses and peaches in the beginning of the first book.

Which is fine, she doesn't know any better. She comes to change and apparently be a better individual with the help of Alex, who gives her something even better than all those contrived make out sessions and ab-sicle moments, making him a worthy love interest in my eyes.
(Mistake me not, I enjoy a good ab-sicle as much as the next girl. Just not ones that are so predictable and slightly ridiculous that I wanted to gag a little, then swoon.) Alex gave Lena the gift of poetry, albeit rather briefly.
But the fact that she had never heard anything like it before and that he apparently had been waiting his whole life for someone to say those words to makes it even more amazing that it ordinarily would be.
I applaud our Authoress for that brief, shining moment of something other than hormones. And, coming to that conclusion, what did Dear Julian give her in this book? Zero privacy during her shower with the Rats (EEEWWWWW!!!!!!) and more hormonal wreckage. He might be a ripped teen guy, (How did he get all those muscles by the way? We don't know.

He just has them, as per the creedo of male love interests. At least Alex had a reason. *massive eye roll*) but Julian has the brain of a twelve year old kid. I really, really, REALLY tried to like Julian, or at least tolerate him until he would just go away, but Noooo, he had to go all gushy touchy feely on us.
It feels to me like instead of sticking with one Hero until we could really and truly fall hard for him, she kills Alex off, the poor fellow, gives us some other guy we don't want instead, and then resurrects poor Alex just so he can suffer some more at the hands of what is evidently now a mandatory Love Triangle. (I know what you're thinking, "What Alex comes back?! WOOT!" But no, it's not woot, because he isn't really the person he used to be either, and I have a feeling that in book three we will bear witness the all-too-common scenario where the once adoring first love interest becomes a shriveled angry thing who is all hate-y all the time.)

In this book, I couldn't really like Lena anymore, because she changed so much that I didn't have a reason anymore to like her. So, then why, you might ask, the three stars? Because among the endless sea of "Bla Bla Bla Julian Bla Bla, Alex is dead, too bad Bla Bla," There was (just like in the last book) a single shining moment of true raw, emotion that I could empathize with. Without putting any really important spoilers herein, Our dear Raven gets the academy award for most convincing and heart wrenching moment. My Heart hurt with her during her story of Blue and the scene after that. I actually liked and enjoyed Raven more in this book than I did Lena.

Read it and see, but seriously, get it at the Library. It's not worth your cash.

THERE ARE NO WORDS. I will NEVER be able to properly express my love and adoration for this series. NEVER. Lauren is brilliant, and I am infected with deliria for these perfectly captivating books.

Delirium was my FAVOURITE book of 2011 and it absolutely blew me away. I just sobbed after I finished it, for all its emotional turmoil and the way Lauren Oliver managed to wring my heart like a wet towel. So of course, I have been anxious for Pandemonium and I devoured it as soon as I got an ARC in the mail.

How am I supposed to express my thoughts on this book?? I can't write reviews that will do Lauren's books justice. I just can't, I'm actually incapable of doing that. Because Lauren's book consistently affect me in such a personal, INTIMATE way.

But I'm going to try. Because everyone needs to read these books!

Reasons to Read:

1.Sobbing, tears, forever crying:
Delirium, as a series, is incredibly heartbreaking. A world where love is treated like a disease? SCARY. And Lena struggles so much, both physically and emotionally. She's particularly fragile in Pandemonium after what has occured in The Last Chapter of Delirum (capitalization is clearly required, as those of you who have read it know). Pandemonium is tragic in its own way, as Lena is so desperately trying to cope with the events and changes which took place in Delirium. It isn't easy. But what can you expect?

2.Stunning, lyrical writing:
I'm convinced that Lauren is a sort of author genius. I have yet to be unimpressed by anything she's written!

"I wonder if this is how people always get close: They heal each other's wounds; they repair the broken skin." And everything has such meaning and depth behind it. Nothing is just said casually, and it is all so thoughfully laced with emotion and words to draw you in to the story itself. Pandemonium is another indication of extreme talent on Lauren's part.

3.Two timelines:
I'm not usually a fan of books written with two alternating timelines from chapter to chapter, but I was really impressed by how it was done in Pandemonium. Normally I find it to be confusing, and unnecessary as it doesn't seem to add much to the story. However, Lauren would finish a chapter from the past and then carry over the same atmosphere and feelings into the new chapter based in the present. And THAT impressed me and really made the story flow well. Yet it all felt very natural, so I'm not even sure this was an intended result of the writing style.

4.Those hints and teasers which made fans worried...
We've all heard the nerve-wracking hints and teasers about Pandemonium; and I know I'm not the only Delirium fan who was dreadfully worried about the direction Pandemonium would take. I refuse to give anything away and confirm one way or another, but I can say that I was utterly surprised by what Lauren included in the story but was still very impressed with how it was handled. And that left me feeling extremely satisfied overall.
Now, I will say that Pandemonium did not leave the same impact on me that Delirium did. I found it harder to relate to some of the new characters introduced, and I so dearly miss Alex. I ADORE Alex. It's forever Alex for me <3

But I can say with complete confidence that I'm going to be counting down the days to Requiem, very very soon and I cannot wait to see how this series ends! Totally one of my favourites in YA and dystopian.

ARC received from HarperCollins Canada for review.

When I read the first book in this series, Delirium, it was hard to ignore the similarities to Ally Condie's Matched. And even though I knew it wasn't intentional, it was had to keep the books separate. When I picked up Pandemonium, it was unfortunately right after I read the second book in the Matched series, Crossed. So I began with hesitation, worried that it was going to follow a similar path to Crossed. I was pleasantly proven wrong.

Pandemonium, picks up right were Delirium left off, and we see Lena's struggle to survive from the first page to the last. The story is told in a Then and Now format, with Lena's initial survival alternating with the Now in which she's involved in the revolution and finding a way to move past the death of Alex. With his absence comes the love interest opening for Julian. Initially I couldn't stand his character. He seemed whiny and weak, but as the story progressed he kind of grew on me. Although I did feel like Lena's character wasn't as strong as I wanted her to be. She spends a long time mourning him, constantly thinking about him and what he would be doing if he were alive, then all of a sudden she was in love with Julian. It just seemed like she gave into the need to be with someone.

As for the ending, well, I won't say what happens, but damn! This has to be one of the greatest cliffhangers I've read in a long time! I will unquestionably be picking up the third in this series.

MY THOUGHTS
ABSOLUTELY LOVED IT

****probably has spoilers, so just go with that*****

Amazing.

That is all this review needs is that one word. I am amazed that I had Delirium sitting on my shelf since it first came out and didn't pick it up until I had Pandemonium in my hands. I admit I didn't read Delirium until after I read Pandemonium. Did it ruin it for me? Nope, not one bit. I think I might have enjoyed it a bit more but that would have been hard since I clicked instantly with the story and the characters. So keep your slings and arrows to yourself and don't come hunt me down for that sacrilege. I fully repent.

Lena is barely alive, Alex is gone and most likely dead. She finds herself in the care of a collection of revolutionaries in the Wild. In the collective, it is all for one, one for all and there is a strong leadership in place that is making plans is trying to fight those who rule. Although those plans aren't fully known to Lena, she knows she is better off in the Wilds as an Invalid than in the City where everyone is in the process of being CURED for the deliria. The story is told though alternating chapters of Lena in the Wild and then working for the Resistance. The could have been horrible sequencing but it really did work for this story. While working undercover for the resistance, Lena meets and saves Julian, the leader's son and that opens up a whole new can of worms since towards the end she discovers that Alex is not quite dead.

The world of Delirium is a quite fascinating dystopian one where love is considered a disease and the only cure is to have surgery which could possibly kill or maim. This book is a real page turner (I hate that term, but nothing else will work for this one). It didn't take me long at all to read it straight through since there is so much action and you felt like you were running with Lena as she is fighting for the resistance. There are so many little twists and turns with amazing secondary characters and location descriptions that seemed to read more of a movie plot than anything else. I am now desperately waiting for the conclusion!

Reviewed by Nyx @ unraveling-words.blogspot.com

Right now I am thoroughly hating this book with a fierce passion. I had to keep telling my self to just breathe! In. Out. Deep breaths.

Starting from the Table of Contents I already knew I was going to have problems, what with how the title of all the chapters were then and now. I would get all invested in one story line just to get wrenched out into the other. Then I would be too pissed off at the book for making me read something I don't care about for like half the chapter till then I'm finally getting the hang of the second plot line and once I'm invested again I get wrenched out AGAIN. And this goes on for like the WHOLE book. It was so bloody exasperating!

Plot wise, I saw everything coming. It wasn't anything new, but like always what kept me going was the writing. I would just keep getting sucked in Every. Time. It was a vicious torture cycle. And the sad part is that at the end I don't know if it was even worth the torture.

It wasn't even just the whole going back and forth that was bad. It was that I knew where it was going. (view spoiler)I'll be honest. I was kind of hoping for something different when I read Delirium but once this one started I just knew. I don't even know why I put myself through that. At this point in time I might not even bother with Requiem.

You might be wondering, how could I not finish a trilogy with, not only is it just one more book but with that ending? Simply cause I don't give a crap anymore. Lena is going to end with Alex and I can't take Julian being left behind. I like Alex, but he just doesn't do it for me. Their relationship has always elicited an 'oh how nice' reaction from me. It was whatevers. But with Julian, I actually ended up being invested. He is so innocent and sweet and I know given half the chance he would be one hell of a guy. At one point Julian and Lena's relationship felt like Delirium all over again only Julian was playing Lena and Lena was playing Alex. But Julian is so much better than Lena. I still find Lena as that brainwashed person as before at times. While Julian living with that father of his and all the crap he went through, he was much more willing to accept change than Lena ever was.

So yeah I will most likely end up not reading Requiem and just end with the self induced torture now than carry it over for one more book.

First, I admit that I am not within the age demographic this series is intended for. I happened to hear "Delirium" was a good dystopian novel and read it without realizing that it was part of a trilogy. When I discovered there was more--I was excited and had high hopes. However, I thought this second book was a real let-down...

First, we are introduced to all these new characters with little to no character development. I felt nothing for any of them and skimmed quickly through various death scenes without any emotional connection. The characters that I did feel connected with from the first book were barely a mention.

Second, the "new" Lena is not in any way familiar to the first. I didn't get an overwhelming character impression of her in the first novel, but throughout she remained annoyingly timid, naïve, and conflicted. To see her suddenly (less than a year later) re-emerge as this fierce revolutionary-- was just too extreme to be convincing.

The reversal of roles in the this new love story seemed repetitive and silly. Alex awakened Lena to the revolution, Lena awakens Julian. Lena is imprisoned & slated for a lobotomy and is rescued by her Invalid hero Alex, Julian is imprisoned and sentenced to death and is saved by his Invalid hero Lena, etc. etc. The only difference being that Julian is a whole lot easier to convince than Lena (I think it only took Julian a couple days to convince him to change his entire views on his world, while it took Lena an entire book). I am not sure why Oliver couldn't think of a more creative way to introduce a second love story other than merely reversing the first.

I also had different expectations of what it might mean to be an undercover revolutionary on a mission. Common sense tells me that you do not use your original name, you are not around familiar people whom you have an emotional attachment to and whom you may therefore be at risk of identifying if captured, and you go in fully trained and aware of the plan. The whole mission seemed so haphazardly done that I had assumed it must have been some sort of test designed for Lena (as had been foreshadowed in a previous chapter when she asked to join the group but was told she was not ready). I was disappointed that this was not the case and we were supposed to believe this nonsense story, of which the bold and brave Lena comes out looking like a fool anyway.

At this point I am also still wondering why an easily replicated 3-prong scar on the neck is enough to convince everyone that someone is "one of them"?!

Far more interesting twists could have been taken with this story. I wanted more sentimentalism and emotion over the loss of Alex. I kept hoping that Lena would happen upon the encampment where Alex had lived and had brought her and would be comforted going through his things. Maybe she would find out some interesting secret about his identity or the real reason for their meeting. Lena could have been living in the Wilds heartbroken and angry, searching for her mother, and fallen for a boy there who inspires her to fight and join the revolution. The whole action and revolution stuff wasn't even necessary in this book, instead this book could have gradually set the stage for the new revolutionary Lena in a manner that isn't quite as jolting or far-fetched. Or she could have joined up on this mission, fully aware of what it involved, being told that her job was to infect Julian with the deliria so that he would fall as a leader, and in the process she actually really does fall for him. Or one of the Scavengers she runs into during her imprisonment is actually Alex and she realizes that not only is he alive, but that he is an enemy (hence why he flinched so often when Lena would call him an Invalid).

I am not sure if I will read the last book. I like to think I won't because I am angry with the course this book took--but like most YA trilogies, they keep getting worse and worse but you HAVE TO know how they end. I think Oliver writes beautifully and is a very talented author (more so than most of the other more well-known YA authors out there) but I think she just took a perfectly good story with great potential and created something so void of any real effort, nothing but a rushed filler book to create some unconvincing love triangle. However, I am sure there will be a movie about it soon enough, so I might as well find out what happens!

You know those books that make you want to cry, laugh insanely, hurl things at the wall and scream? This is one of those books. Just like the first one, Delirium. Oliver just has this way to make you truly experience a story and just dive in so deep that when you take a lungful of air you're sputtering and blubbering like an idiot with how freaking genius the story is! Oliver delivers and BOY does she deliver!
Okay, so I was excited to read this because I was dying to know if Alex was really alive. I was so torn and heartbroken when Lena kept running and Alex died. I was so frustrated and ag! It was awful. I cried like an idiot, just really like you wouldn't believe! So, this story was pretty action-packed and intense. Lena is supposed to keep an eye on Julian though she doesn't know why and when hell breaks loose in a conference they are in she sticks to the kid like glue and they both end up kidnapped. Lena tries to free them both, but things get complicated when Julian finds out that Lena is an Invalid...
The book goes back and forth between Now and Then, Lena when she first escaped and how she adapted to the Wilds and how she's coping and dealing with life nowadays. It was amazing and that ending was just so incredible and such a cliffhanger that I just am going insane! It left me my insides all twisted and OMG I cannot wait for Requiem!

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.

Although I thought Delirium was an entertaining read, I never would have thought that Pandemonium would leave me thinking about the story for hours and hours after finishing. Lauren Oliver packs this book with more action, more romance, and more surprising twists.

After leaving her old life--and Alex--behind, Lena is found and rescued by a group of Invalids nearly 60 miles away from Portland. After her savior, Raven, takes her in and nurses her back to health, she's taught how to survive in the Wilds. She meets the others that live at the Homestead and learn what it's like to be in a real family, where each person helps in taking care of each other. Though her life is beginning to look up from what it used to be, Lena still can't stop herself from thinking about Alex, about how it would be if he was still alive and by her side as planned.

She promises Raven that she will do whatever she needs to for her new family, which also means eventually making their way to the closest city in New York and living in disguise among the cured. When Scavengers kidnap her and a well-known teenage boy named Julian, she has to team up with him in order to make it out alive, possibly spilling some secrets about the past along the way.

While I quite enjoyed Julian's character and story, I couldn't help myself from looking back to Alex and wishing he'd appear although it seems nearly impossible. Lena finds out what it's like to survive on very little, to depend on herself, and to let go of what's gone. By the end of Pandemonium, I was left aching for more; to find out what happens next. The unbelievable cliffhanger confirmed what I was hoping throughout the entire book, yet I couldn't help but want more.

Review from The Hollow Cupboards- thehollowcupboards.blogspot.com

My Thoughts:
Last year I was fascinated by DELIRIUM. The book was amazing. But, it left you with such a cliff hanger that you would do whatever to get book #2, which ended up being PANDEMONIUM.
You always wonder "Where will book #2 go?" "Is it going to be as good as book #1?"
You need not worry about any of those questions. PANDEMONIUM was one of those book that you just did not want to set down. You will want your eyes to read faster and faster.
Each page is full of something that will make you literally say "Oh..My..God" yes. That good.
Amor Deliria Nervosa, is what everyone is so afraid of. To fall in love. To have feelings at all. Because really any kind of "emotion" can lead to Amor Deliria Nervosa.
Lena is out, in the Wilds. Wondering about Alex, who she left at that fence, bleeding. Is he alive? She always wonders this. She pushes herself to be stronger, better. Everything that Alex would have wanted to be to survive out in the Wilds.
Living out there is not easy. It's rather a day by day thing. Always wondering what is going to happen tomorrow.
Now an Invalid, Lena has so many challenges in front of her.
No one will be who they seem to be. No one.
PANDEMONIUM will leave you utterly speechless page after page.
Your heart will break, over and over. Then just when you think... "sigh, relief"
Oliver will rip your heart right out of your chest, and leave you there looking at the last words in the book... thinking "ARE YOU KIDDING ME?" (well at least that is what I said, a long with some other things......)
PANDEMONIUM will fill in all the pieces of your heart DELIRIUM ripped out. Then PANDEMONIUM will leave you utterly speechless... and wanting / needing / screaming & pleading for book #3.

I always have a hard time writing reviews. I always feel I can never find the words I want to truly express how I'm feeling. This is why I'm a reader, not a writer. This review is so hard to write. Harder than normal.

Delirium, I read this last year. I loved it so much. Pandemonium leaves off pretty much right where Delirium heartbreakingly stops. I wasn't sure where this story was going to go... It wasn't at all what I was expecting, but oh boy, what a hell of a ride.
Life in the wilds is no joke, for real. It's not all wonderful like you think it will be when you cross the fence. I expected living to be harsh, yes, but it was raw. Oliver does a great job of lodging my heart in my throat, let me tell you. There is one particular scene that brought me to tears. I'm not going to elaborate, let's just say as a mother, I was just a mess. You ladies who have read it know what I'm talking about.

One thing I loved about Pandemonium, was the corruption. You get a better glimpse into the government and how screwed up it really is. Second thing I loved, was how it was written. Then and Now.. Then being right when Lena enters the Wilds, and Now is months and months later after she's acclimated. I'll admit, I was concerned when I heard it was written this way, but it was done flawlessly. Everything just flowed together so perfectly, past and present.

There are new Characters. There are a few I really liked, and a few not so much. Even the ones I didn't like much were a great addition to the story.

There are some surprises and shocks guys! This cliff hanger.. Wow. I don't know how I will survive a whole year without knowing what happens. I want everyone to read them so they can wait with me. Lol.

I loved the first book in the series, Delirium. The end left me bawling and wanting more. Pandemonium was one of the books I was looking forward to most in 2012. Needless to say, it did not disappoint at all. I fell in love with again with the old characters, and fell in love for the first time with some new characters. At first, I didn't like Julian because I was a Team Alex person, but as the story progressed I began to like him more and more. There were a couple character deaths with new characters that left me quite sad, but I understand why the author had to do it. I missed Hana quite a bit in this book. I was a little confused in the beginning because it starts with her being in a school, and then goes back to her time spent in the Wilds. If you stick with the book, the hopping and skipping from now to then will start to make a lot of sense and is a unique way to write the story. I applaud Lauren Oliver for writing it that way, especially after Ally Condie tried to write Crossed, another hit dystopian novel, in the same way and it turned out as a flop for most fans. Oliver definitely succeeded with it though. Lena grows from a weak girl to a strong, smart, courageous woman in between her first week in the Wilds and the end of Pandemonium. The ending had me freaking out. I didn't know whether I wanted to laugh, cry, or throw my book at a wall. I need to read the next book NOW. This book is definitely worth checking out, but make sure you read Delirium first or it won't make much sense. I can't wait to read the third book in the series, Requiem, and find out what happens next.

Wow, that was something.
I had really high expectations for Pandemonium, and they were definitely met. It wasn't what I expected whatsoever, but that's okay. It was amazing and worth it and the dang cliffhanger has me crying inside. I can't wait for the next book. AT ALL. What will I do with my life??
Anyway, the way Lauren Oliver set up the chapters really piqued my interest. At first, I admit I was confused, but after two or three sets of "Now" and "Then" it was simple to follow. The "Then" helped explain and even occasionally "foreshadowed" what would happen in the "Now". The writing itself was, of course, great. I had no worries when I first started because I know Oliver is an amazing writer. You can really feel the emotions that Lena is going through because of how the sentences are structured.
The characters- oh my goodness. Lena went from being a soft, follow-the-rules type to a complete badass. She went undercover knowing the danger and trudged through the forest after "losing" the love of her life. Love her. Julian, without giving too much away, is also a great character. I love how he developed throughout the story. At first, I didn't think I'd like him. He seemed wimpy, but he definitely grew on me. Raven is way more badass than Lena, she's amazing. She's caring, brave, and even though she made some wrong decisions, in the end she corrected them.
The plot got intense. The way it changed from then to now switched it up a bit- I loved it. All of the new settings were great too- NYC and the other homesteads, the hospital, the tunnels. Fantastic.
I CANNOT wait for the next book. The cliffhanger left me begging for more. I just kept reading that last page over and over, not believing it was true. I was heartbroken and depressed yet happy and ecstatic; it was just.. I can't even explain it. If you haven't read the book yet, it is in your best interest to do it. Now preferably. ;)
5/5 hands down.

What to say about this book... If you haven't read this book yet, you probably shouldn't read my review lol.

I just finished it. And, I did like it better than Delirium. It was exciting. Each page had something new and thrilling. I loved it.

I missed Alex. I thought he would come back sooner than the last page. But I also like Julian. I'm so torn. I didn't want there to be a love triangle. Now that there is, I don't know which "team" I'm on.

The ending very much left me hanging. Not as bad as Delirium did, but still! I very much look forward to book 3.

I liked it. I loved it. I hated it. But mostly loved :). 5 stars.

wow, way better than the 2nd book in a trilogy usually is! at first it was hard to get used to the back and forth of the 'now' and 'then' chapters but once i got into the rhythm it worked. for some reason i was worried after reading delirium that there wasn't a good way to continue the story and i wouldn't like the next installment but i can happily say i was very wrong! not to mention a shocker ending that i hate to admit i was in no way expecting!
overall i absolutely love the idea that is behind this story being told and i simply can't wait for #3!!! i'd definitely recommend this to anyone who enjoys YA and/or dystopian fiction!

Before reading Pandemonium, I have been hearing lots of flack about how others didn't like the book and that the ending was horrible . This book proves to me all the more that not everyone is going to like the same things when it comes to books. Pandemonium centers the story around Lena and her life now that Alex is dead and she is learning to survive in the Wilds. the old Lena has died off in order to survive the delirium that Alex caused within her. It took me a little bit to fully get into the story because it's written in a Then and Now type setting. Then being when Lena first lived in the Wilds , to Now , the events that happened after Lena is strong again. In the Now Lena is surviving the loss of Alex her first love , the one who infected her with the Delirium . Nothing could prepare her for the idea that she might open her heart to another... that she might just infect someone else with the Delirium. Julian becomes an unexpected interest in Lena , but Lena struggles with the thought of giving her heart to another, after all she lost her first love. In this book you get to see the growth in Lena all the more for now not only does she have to survive the Wilds without Alex , but now she has to survive the possibility of falling in love. I will disagree to a point with those that did not like the ending . I myself have a love hate relationship with it purely cause its a cliff hanger and makes me upset that I have to wait so long for the next book. The ending left me with that "Oh Crap" feeling and without a doubt book three will be in my greedy little hands the very moment if goes on sale. So thank you Lauren Oliver for writing such a fantastic book , I will go sit in the corner now and pout until book three magically appears.

The is review is of my own opinion I was in no way compensated for it. The review can also be found on the store, Barnes and Noble, Goodreads , and the FB page.

Enjoy....

Lena's so different in this book. She's struggling with the pain of losing Alex, adapting to her new life. She's burying the past, trying to let go. And she does.

When Julian Fineman was kidnapped and she got caught too, I didn't know how she was important...but I figured she was going to change his mind about the deliria. How could that not be how it was resolved? They were locked up in a tiny room together, and then made their escape, relying on one another. Of course they'd end up at least friends.

I liked the double storyline thing. "Then" and "Now" was a really good idea on Oliver's part.

But the ending pissed me off...No, it wasn't bad. It was a cliffhanger. The next one won't be out until March next year! How do you expect us to wait that long without going completely bonkers? Couldn't put it down...and then I find this ending. It's quite frustrating. You people who've read it, you know what I mean.

So, we come across yet another dreaded love triangle. Really? Just as long as it doesn't turn into a vicious Team Julian/Team Alex battle like Twilight, I think it'll be okay. Personally I haven't picked a side. I don't know enough. Julian's a likeable guy, but so was Alex in Delirium. Now that he's back, I've no clue who to root for. What if he's not the same person? Whatever happenned in prison or whatever might've really changed him...and Lena's changed too. Maybe he doesn't love her anymore. Maybe she'll realize that she doesn't love him anymore. I don't know.

So mummy dearest is part of the resistance? I saw that coming. I was thinking about the woman Lena was taken by, how she kept saying her name and didn't want to be revealed...who else could it be?

And Thomas Fineman...I'm assuming he's dead. Raven shot him, but then again, we know gunshot wounds don't always take in this dystopian world. I'm not glad so much as in agreement that Oliver was right in killing him off. You grow to hate him once you realize how he treated his children. I mean, Julian's brother, may he rest in peace whatever his name was, died because he was beaten and then neglected. And he was willing to have his son executed because he was "sick". Ridiculous, Thomas. I realize there's no love in you...but does that have to make you cruel?

Great book. Different. Thought provoking, just like the first. Love may the reason for a lot of problems, but really it's one of the most important things ever. Take that away, call it a disease...well, then we're not much more than empty shells, are we? This book helps prove that.

PANDEMONIUM continues immediately after the ending of DELIRIUM. Lena is running away from the border after seeing her love Alex killed. She is half dead herself before she is found by a group of Invalids in the wild.

The first quarter of the book was a bit depressing as Lena mourns and lets herself sorta waste away. She finally kicks herself into gear and gets back to her strong self. She of course is strongly against the cure and is now fighting on the side of the Invalids. The story flowed well. It jumps back and forth between Lena's time in the wild in the past and the present day events she is currently going through. I liked all the explanations of the wild and how everything worked around "camp". I enjoyed most of the new characters. The newest love interest kinda annoyed me. I know that Lena needs to move on with her life but I had a hard time seeing the romantic connection between her and Julian. They went through some tough things together but they didn't click with me. If she had to have a new love interest at all I would have liked to see her with someone from the wild. That is the only thing I didn't like about the story.

I sorta saw the ending coming but still enjoyed it all the same, it will definitely shake things up. Everything was just going too good for something major not to happen. It is a bit of a cliffhanger though so be prepared to be left with your mouth open and mind racing. REQUIEM will be out in 2013.

This book was soo good. For me it was better than the first because there's more action in these book. We get to see new interesting characters like Raven , Tack , Julian , it's so incredible and full of secrets , and I think that I really liked the end , I can't speak a lot about it because it will be a big spoiler , but you really , it just blows your mind , even if you saw it coming , the way it's written it just blows your mind. I can't tell you exactly what all the book will be about , but if you liked Delirium , you should BUY PANDEMONIUM!!

In some ways I found Pandemonium better than Delirium and in other ways worse. It was easier to get into right from the beginning and keep going. However, the novelty of the world building was gone. It's hard for me to buy into a future world in which we reach a point where "love" is a disease that must be prevented through surgery. The main character, Lena, shows some growth, but the plot relies on coincidence and twists that are pretty hard to swallow. I'm sure I'll read the third but *spoiler ahead*

I'm very tired of dystopian love triangles.

Normally, I procrastinate a bit before writing a review. I generally finish it and then come back in a few days to write the actual review. With this book, though, I'll just plunge right into the critique. Caution, there will be spoilers--including some allusions to the ending, though I won't spell it out entirely.

First and foremost, I have to say that this book is so much better than Delirium that I could hardly believe I was reading the same series. I've seen much praise of Lauren Oliver's writing, but I'd only read Delirium and wasn't very impressed by it, so I didn't quite get what the fuss was about. Now, after reading this book, I do. Oliver writes beautifully. She has a way of exploring the depths of grief that I found so beautiful and melancholic without being overdone. Lena felt like a much deeper, richer character in this book. She showed so much growth over the course of the book, and Oliver wrote that growth in such a way that I was entirely convinced. I finally understood why she had been so praised, and I wholeheartedly agreed with that praise. Lauren Oliver can really write lovely prose without it coming across as schmaltzy. Had this been the first book in the series, I'd have had a much different view of the series as a whole.

Unfortunately, Oliver's beautiful prose isn't enough to save the book from what I thought was its biggest trap: its predictability. The moment Lena laid eyes on Julian, I just knew *exactly* where Oliver was going with it. While I did think their romance was convincing, and while I really liked the way Oliver showed the tension between Lena's gradually developing feelings for Julian and the pain it made her feel because of her memories of Alex, I just knew the two of them were going to end up together by the end of the book. While Lena's character is well done in this book, I thought Julian's was trite, a plot device designed to teach the reader something about the flip side, and the requisite boy from the "wrong" side of the tracks with whom Lena learns to see eye to eye. It pretty much bored me. And I saw the ending of the book coming from approximately 3,000 miles away, and all I could do was groan in frustration and say, "Oliver, not you too! There's no rule that says this HAS to be done in YA lit. I don't care if everyone else is doing it, why did you have to go there too?"

The other big problem I had with this book is that I still cannot buy the premise behind Oliver's dystopia. However, I did think she did a better job of hinting at an agenda in which the whole idea of deliria would make sense. Still, as good as the world-building was in this book, it still to me lacked legitimacy. The structure is good and well drawn, but the foundation is really too shaky to support it. I think Oliver is reaching for some big ideas here, but she's either just scratching the surface because she intends to bust them out in full force in the next book, or she didn't quite make it up the mountain. Either way, it seriously impeded my enjoyment of this book. As good as it was, I kept falling out of the narrative because there was literally a voice in my head saying, "This dystopia doesn't make any sense." It created a sort of cognitive dissonance in my brain because one part of me was thinking, "Wow, this book is so beautifully written and well done. I love it!" while another part of me was thinking, "Yeah, but I still don't buy that this dystopia could exist because it doesn't make sense."

On the other hand, the world building was good. I liked that Oliver added extra layers of complexity with the addition of the Scavengers, the people living in the subway, and the tension between the Pandemonium-style religious fundamentalists and their more measured counterparts. All of these things expanded the world considerably, gave it some new shades of gray, and made it clear just how overwhelming Lena's situation is. These new factions also had a lot to say about human nature and how motivated by self-interest people can be. I also thought the Wilds were well done, and I was fascinated by the homesteads and by the way the members of the resistance on the inside communicated with those on the outside. Oliver also added a lot of extra emotional resonance to the book with her descriptions of the bombings. They gave a concrete sense of just how far those in power are willing to go to protect that power.

In the end, what's good about this book is really good and what's bad is bad. This has the effect of placing the book firmly in the three star rating because the bad features tended to cancel out the good features for me, leaving me with that sense of "this book's not bad", which is obviously not much of a ringing endorsement. Still, it did pull me back into the series and I am planning on reading the Hana story along with the third installment, which is more than I can say for the way I felt after Delirium, when I decided I wasn't going to bother to read the rest of the series. I'm really hoping that Oliver will pull it all together in the end because the bottom line is that she's a very good, very literary writer. As much as I love YA fic, it's a genre that would only benefit from an infusion of writers with talent like Oliver's.

I expected great things from this book, great thing indeed. Was I satisfied? To an extent. The potential to make a great trilogy is within Oliver's reach. Hopefully, and I have a great amount of hope and clarity, she won't mess it up.

The story starts off where Delirium left off, with a slight time skip. Lena is now on the outside, in the Wilds, and it's a harder life than she thought it would be. She struggles at first, but gains her footing in no time. She has trouble copping with her memories of Alex and Hana and her old life.

Lena is our main character. She is the one that faces struggles head on. In Delirium, I have to admit, I thought she was a bit lackluster. But in Pandemonium, I was so happy with her. She did things that I liked, things that made me proud of her. She changes in realistic ways and grows. In the first book, it seemed a bit unrealistic that Lena could change so drastically, morphing into something that she is not. This book changes that around, taking what she turned into and making her grow more slowly. For this, I applaud Oliver.

Julian is another major character. Let me just say that I absolutely love him! I like him more than Alex. Where as Alex is a perfect guy, I think that he feels flat when compared to Julian. Julian has his own pros, but he also has cons, and that's what I love about him. He is naive and sheltered, as most are in their society, but also curious.

The plot takes many twists and turns throughout the story. As I read, I gasped and grumbled. There was so much going on, but I'm not complaining. Though, I am complaining about one thing: the structure of the book. Pandemonium is broken up into alternating "Now" and "Then" sections. I absolutely loved the "Now" parts! It's just the "Then" moments that I have issues with. The flow of the book is jerky because of this. At times, I felt like just skipping the "Then" sections. I mean, you go from and action scene to a dull scene about them trekking through the woods. It really ruined the moment for me.

Besides that, I can't complain. The book really delivered for me, yet still left me hanging. The ending was obvious, but I didn't care, as it was a good set up for the next book. I would recommend this to anyone that likes Dystopian books. The series is fantastic, and though it has it flaws, it is still a satisfying read.

Wow, that's pretty much all I can say. This was an amazing book, describing Lena's times in the Wilds and how many other groups there are that face the hardships of being outcast by society. This is an amazing series, and you should read them. However, I think you should wait until next year spring, because that's when the final book comes out, and you don't have to wait with the cliffhanger ending of this book.

Now there are going to be some spoilers, so if you haven't read the book, you should stop reading now, or the whole book is going to be ruined.

I'd like to share my thoughts on the ending of this book. I can't believe that Alex is alive. I mean, I saw it coming and all, but seriously? I really hope this doesn't turn into another stupid twilight book, where the main precise of the book is Lena picking who she wants to be with (that is the only reason I didn't rate it 5 stars). I don't know what might happen next, but I really hope the next book isn't a let down. When I first read the ending, I was thinking really? You're going to have it be like that? But then again, there might have not been much of a story if Lauren Oliver didn't throw that out there. I really hope this next book proves to be good, because this is such a wonderful series. Can't wait until next spring! :)

I enjoyed Delirium. It was one in a long string of dystopia novels, but I enjoyed it. This novel blew Delirium away. I feel like this second in a trilogy was very similar to Crossed from the Matched trilogy. The first novel establishes the world and begins to go against the grain. The second novel is outside the society, living amongst the outsiders.

I really enjoy when an author takes liberty in the perspective or timeline of a novel. The then and now method of revealing the story was done in a very interesting way.

This second book of the Delirium trilogy was just as full of excitement as the first. I really did like the way it was wrote with each chapter going back and forth between then and now. It was like two stories connecting as one. I enjoyed learning more about the people of the wilds and how they struggled to survive the harsh environment. It was also interesting reading about the new identity and what goes on back in the land of the cured. There is a lot of depth to this story and now I am happy to dig into book 3!

I loved Delirium. Especially the ending. It was heartbreakingly beautiful, and I wish Ms. Oliver had left it that way. So when I heard Pandemonium was coming out, I was skeptical. But I read it and enjoyed it, but...

It could have been better.

Lauren Oliver's writing is as lovely as always. I especially enjoyed how Lena's story was broken up into "now" and "then". We see Lena's growth as a character from the scared and sheltered girl she was in Delirium to the brokenhearted, yet stronger, girl in Pandemonium. She isn't wide-eyed anymore. She's faced hell and is stronger for it.

I loved seeing the Wilds, which had only been hinted at in Delirium. We met so many great characters there, including Raven, who I loved reading about, and Blue, who I adored. The culture of the invalids was so well thought out and engrossing. The stark contrast between the invalids--who have nothing except freedom--and the valids--who have everything but freedom--was fascinating.

However, I found the plot with Raven and Tack and the Pro-Cure Movement and the Scavengers a bit confusing and unlikely. It seems like the only purpose was to show the conflicted society and set Lena up with Julian. This plot dragged down the novel instead of propelling it forward.

And then we have Julian because what YA book is complete without a love triangle? (Can I just have a quick shout-out to Divergent which avoided this whole subplot?) Honestly, I liked him better than Alex. He was more real, less perfect. He transforms from a pawn of his father's, the leader of the pro-cure movement, willing to risk death to receive the cure, to a braver man falling in love for the first time. Yet I wish Ms. Oliver would let her character's love stand for itself rather than introducing an extremely cliched plot device. Her books are better than that.

Predictably, in Requiem, we will have the anticipated showdown between Alex and Julian. I'll read it, for Lauren Oliver's gorgeous writing and to see the end of Lena's story.

** spoiler alert ** Let's start with the cover first. Quite honestly, I am not as huge of a fan of this cover as Delirium's cover. I mean, yes, the cover is captivating and all, but it just didn't grab me quite as much as Delirium. Maybe it is the color that is throwing me off.....

I have heard many mixed reviews in the way this book is written. I thoroughly enjoyed the Then and Now parts, though I have to say I found the Now parts much more interesting. The Then parts were just monotone to me.

If I really sat down and though about how long it took me to really get into the story, I would have to say about page 200. Really and truly I wasn't completely enthralled until the last third of the book. Maybe it was because I was trying to recall what happened in Delirium? See, that's the problem with books being released a year apart. I can NEVER remember what happened in the first book!

I do feel like Lena grew more in this book. She is another kick-butt heroine, and I enjoyed her romance with Julien. But, the whole time I was aching for Alex. I missed him BADLY!

The end of the book was the best part. Oh. My. Gosh. This cliffhanger is INSANE! I need to know what happens next!

Spoiler-
Ahhhh! Alex is back! I think my heart skipped a beat when I read that. Now there is a love triangle! Man does Mrs. Oliver know how to get her readers to come back for more!

Overall, this book was enjoyable. It was a little slow-paced, and lacked action for me. I did enjoy the romance, but need more! I definitely liked Delirium better. Regardless, I will be reading the next book

***Small spoiler alert***This was one of my long awaited books. After reading Delirium I could hardly stand the wait for Pandemonium. Lena has just been through so much and continues to do so. I almost thought she'd end up giving up but she kept fighting and it was a thrilling read. The end was awesome, I cannot wait for the third book now... A year to wait... Le sigh... But now it's become a love triangle as it so happens with many of these young adult books. What will she end up doing? One she thought to be dead and the other already set to die...