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 Goodreads)
Seven pages in and I started crying. 360 pages later, I was still crying. The day after I finished reading I was running into Delirium and Pandemonium things all over Twitter and Tumblr - and every single time I started to tear up. By the end of the day I was pretty sure I was broken. That's the only explanation - Lauren Oliver broke me.
But that's okay, because it's so worth it. Delirium was amazing, but Pandemonium absolutely blew me away. After being completely shattered by Delirium, I was a little anxious to pick this one up. Even after I started reading, I had to go through it slowly and put it down frequently because a lot of it was really hard and intense (and you guys, I'm not joking, I'm tearing up AGAIN writing this and thinking about it). I was mostly impressed with the way the book was narrated. It alternated from what happened to Lena right after Delirium ended and where she ended up - or what she's doing at the current moment. It took a few pages to catch on to where she was and what she was doing but once I did, it was really rich to read the result of her transformation along with the actual transformation.
I wasn't completely thrilled with the new characters that were introduced, they kind of fell to the wayside for me. But really this book is so Lena-focused that it didn't bother me too much. I did find it hard to like Julian, but I do think that Lauren Oliver did a wonderful job writing his character. I had a preconceived notion about the way this book would go down, but every thought I had was instantly shattered and surpassed. Now, I'm at a total loss to even guess where book three will go - I can only imagine it will be somewhere dark, heart-wrenching, and incredible.
I'm going to stop before I start giving things away. I will say this - if you've read it PLEASE email me or DM me on Twitter because I'm dying here. I need to talk about things or cry on someone's shoulder...
