Pandemonium - a review

Pandemonium
Lauren Oliver
384 pages 
HarperCollins

This is a review of the sequel to Lauren Oliver's Delirium.

There are zero pandas in Pandemonium. I twittered Lauren Oliver about this while I was reading it. She tweeted back "keep the faith". My black and white friends never showed up.

But I am not disappointed. No. I am thrilled. Lena is back. She's still an uncured--a person who can fall prey to the disease known as love. Lena is a different person from the young girl we met in Delirium. She's converted into a badass butt kicking version of herself that I didn't see coming. She's in New York City--the home of Cats--not pandas, and the place of new beginnings.

Alex is not back, but he is still here, he haunts Lena's thoughts and she questions her every move by asking What Would Alex Do? (WWAD bracelets soon to come)  We flash from a now (which is in a future dystopian America) to a then (which is also in the future but happens before the now).

There are new characters and what feels like an entirely  new world--a much bigger world than the Portland only setting from the first book.  We learn more about the Wilds: the uncured population that live outside of Deliria-free regulated zones.

We learn about the resistance and its operations within in America. We learn how Lena came to live in New York City. We get a few answers. We get a few more questions: think of Pandemonium as The Two Towers meets an episode of Lost: there's a lot of walking, it takes place on an island, and everyone has a secret they're not telling.

Lauren Oliver's writing is sound as usual. I still don't like the book cover. The new direction pleases me because just like the chick with only half her face on the cover, I didn't see a lot coming.*

So, for an Alex free, Deliria-loaded, panda-less book: she did really well. I am, once again, apologizing to Lauren Oliver for judging a book by its cover. I even enjoyed this one more than Delirium because there's a lot more action** and a lot more twists and turns.

This is much more of a guy book than the first one and that made me happy. The whole no pandas thing, though? Angers the fuck out of me.

Note: I read this on my Kindle. 
*Seriously? Why are the faces on book covers always cut in half?
**Explosions are cool. Battling with knives even better.
No pandas were harmed in the making of this review.