***
Rating:4 out of 5 stars
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.
(blurb from Goodreads
***
My God. That ending. That had to be the most awkward "awkward moment" I've ever read in a book. EVER.
But then a bit later on, it hits me how hilarious the situation Lena's gotten herself in and the laughter starts.
Oh, Lena. You poor, poor girl.
But what a hell of a book. Where is the next one when I need it the most?
***
Before reading Pandemonium, I really doubted that this book could follow up to [book:Delirium|7686667] and its (tragic) ending. There had just been too many shitty sequels that could make me enthusiastic about reading them. But I really should've known better than to doubt Lauren Oliver.
In Pandemonium, Lena is having to survive in the Wilds with her new friends, is having to prove herself worthy to be in the resistance, and is having to forget the boy who made her rebel in the first place, infected her, Alex.
I know that in Delirium, a number of people didn't find Lena that "kick-ass" heroine that we all love (in her defense, all those rules would scare me too, into rebelling). But in Pandemonium, I feel that she definitely redeemed herself. Now without all those regulations and boundaries, Lena was able to unleash her inner survivalist, which wasn't a very easy thing to do, after all that she's been through. She even is deemed strong enough by her fellow rebels to be part of the resistance. I definitely saw more of Lena in action scenes (and winning) in this book than in the previous. So I definitely think of her as part of the "kick-ass heroine" club now.
I also know that a lot of you didn't really like the fact that Lena is "allegedly" going to fall in love with someone other than Alex, and I'm sorry to tell you guys, but that fact is true. If that is enough for you to run away screaming from this book, by all means, do, but let me just tell you now, you are missing out on a hell of a lot of goodies if you do that. I have to admit though, I did kind of dislike Lena's new love interest. It might be because he, for me, was a little naive or it could be plainly just because he wasn't Alex. Also, at times, I felt that their relationship was a little forced. The love interest, Julian, would say weird things like, "your hair smells like roses" or "your waist is so small" (yes), that not only creeped Lena out, but creeped me out too. I don't know if it was just lack of being around females that made him act this way (and trust me; I go to an all girls school and whenever a person of the opposite walks by, my beloved classmates throw themselves at him) or what, but I was pretty skeptical of him at first. After a while, though, and getting to know his character more, he grew on me, but of course, before it got more than that, the ending got in the way of everything (as expressed in the mini review above).
An aspect of the book I really enjoyed was Lena's life in the Wilds. In Delirium we didn't really get to experience the Wilds too much and that was something I was really looking forward to in this book. As cool as I thought it would be, living in the Wilds, it ended up not being the "paradise" that I was expecting. It was actually pretty brutal out there, and with the addition of Scavengers (Invalids that attack just for kicks) it became even harder to survive out there. I quite liked all the new characters too, Raven, Tack, Hunter. Loved them, and the fact that they gave birth to Lena in the woods, as Lena said about Raven in the book.
Other than creepy Julian and the random add of Scavengers (and the possible future love triangle as hinted in the ending of Pandemonium), I very, very much enjoyed this book, and you have no idea how much I'm craving for the next and final book. But I guess after that killer cliff-hanger, who wouldn't?
