2 For 1 Special! Book Review: Delirium AND Pandemonium (Delirium #2) by Lauren Oliver

Today is the last of the 3 in a row, double book review special! Here is a look at another trilogy that is 2/3rds of the way done. I will be reviewing Lauren Oliver's Delirium and its sequel, Pandemonium.

Here is the synopsis of Delirium (from Goodreads.com):

Before scientists found the cure, people thought love was a good thing. They didn’t understand that once love -- the deliria -- blooms in your blood, there is no escaping its hold. Things are different now. Scientists are able to eradicate love, and the government demands that all citizens receive the cure upon turning eighteen. Lena Holoway has always looked forward to the day when she’ll be cured. A life without love is a life without pain: safe, measured, predictable, and happy. But with ninety-five days left until her treatment, Lena does the unthinkable: She falls in love.

I really loved Delirium. The writing is beautiful. Lauren Oliver really does a great job and I greatly admire her writing. Trust me when I say Lauren Oliver can write. She is the kind of writer that takes something you've thought or felt and puts it in the exact, right words. She makes you feel. Oliver is without a doubt an artist and she has made a fan out of me. I like the way she presents her characters. My favorites would have to be Grace and Alex. I really like Alex! He is a keeper. I am considering allowing him to become one of my fictional boyfriends! He should be proud. It is an honor just to be considered. Hmm...You know what? Upon further consideration, I'm going to go ahead and induct him into my Hall of Book Boyfriends!! You heard it here first folks!

Congrats Alex!!!

Anywho, Lauren Oliver writes a beautiful story. I really like how Lena is confronted with her own prejudices. She has been taught that love is a disease that, like cancer, destroys you from the inside. But a boy comes into her life and makes her question what she has accepted througout her entire life. It really makes you wonder about the beliefs we accept and it makes you see the importance of love. Love is in all the little things that make life worthwhile; it is freedom and without it we lose who we are.  The dystopian society Oliver presents is very close to our own and thus gives the story a personal element that really allows readers to connect. As the story progresses you begin to see Lena grow and mature. Throughout the entire novel, the writing remains beautiful. As for the ending…well there is a bit of a painful cliffhanger, but it is a beautiful and poetic ending that makes sense even as it introduces your heart to a cheese-grater... I don’t know what else to say about the ending...I really love the last words of the novel . But, yea, the powerful ending might make you experience the following:

Just keep in mind that a novel that can really make you feel for its characters in such a powerful manner is most definetly a good one!

Now, on to the next one!

I really liked Pandemonium. I am not kidding when I say Lauren Oliver is a beautiful wrtiter. In this sequel to Delirium, we see Lena find strength and we see her struggle with her identity. The book moves between “Then” and “Now” periods, meaning that it switches back and forth between the present and flashbacks. It works because it extends the central action. I must say that I actually liked the first book more than this one, but this book is also beautifully written so I am not going to complain. Obviously, things had to change. Lena's world has drastically changed since Delirium and this book reflects that shift.  Things are different. Lena is different. There may be some plot-related reasons why I prefer the first book, but I can’t be more specific. Let me just say that some things happen that I really wish I could change, although some people seem to be in favor of them...I am not mad at Lauren Oliver, how could I be? She is too much of a beautiful writer. I am mad at her believable characters for not listening to me while I scream things at them! Whether or not you like the turn of events, one thing is certain: the end will get you. This book shows you that fate can be both cruel and kind, that life and love hurt, and that sometimes you get tangled up in a web you didn’t even know you were weaving. It is all very exciting. The best way I can describe reading this book is like this:

Most of the time reading this book had me going "This is all well and good, but lets get to the good stuff!" You see, I was still having trouble getting over the ending of Delirium. But then I got to the end and I was like "There it is! Wait, don't end, I need more! More I tell you! *clutches heart*!!"

Yep, that's the best way to describe my reading of this book. I really want to see where we go from here. Lauren Oliver is a terrific writer so I know that she has a purpose and I cannot wait to see how everything unfolds.

This is a good series and I liked both books. I highly recommend reading them…but I still need to rant a little bit about the pain Pandemonium has caused me. I will maneuver my rant away from any spoilers so don’t worry about that, but do worry about me and my poor heart!

WHY, Dear Lord, WHY!!!!!!????????????!!!!!!!!!!

Why must authors keep playing hacky sack with my poor, vulnerable heart? Have they no respect?! Ah my feelings! The pain! Son of a bitch! I am angry! Reader be warned, there is a major, huge, Cliffhanger, maybe even the big papa of cliffhanger endings. I thought the ending of the first one was torturous, but this second book finishes with a tsunami of feelings. *sniff, sniff*

So many feelings! Sadess, Happiness, Pain, Relief , Confusion, Certainty, more Confusion, Powerlessness, and Anger! My anger is mostly directed at one character, though I know I am actually mad at another. This book is making me experience misdirected anger! Even though my anger is misdirected, this person needs to leave the series right now! The following message is directed to that particular character:

Why were you ever born?! Why?! Just make like a tree and let someone chop you up with an axe! Away with you! Nobody wants you here! Seriously, I hate you.

Now I turn to the character that truly deserves my contempt, maybe: 

What have you done?!!! You've ruined everything, you ungrateful, faithless, little swine! You go to hell! HELL! You are the root of all evil! I hate you! This is all your fault! I hate you! I hate you!

I am sorry for these outbursts, I am just so angry! Anger surges in my veins and threatens to consume my very existence…but I am also a little bit happy because I have hope. Despite everything, this book also gave me hope and I have to believe that the 3^rd book will fix the emotional dam that has burst within me! Just Fix It! Requiem comes out Spring 2013. 2013! Quit playing games with my heart Lauren Oliver! Damn you, you wonderful author you, damn you and your torturous cliffhangers! I don’t know how to deal with this…I really want Requiem. I want it now. According to Lauren Oliver's blog, Requiem is already finished and waiting publication or whatever, all I care about is that it doesn't come out until 2013! Gah! I think I feel a twitch coming on...And you know what? Oliver has also revealed that it will be written from two points of view! Oh lord. Now I really have the twitches...I need to hold on to the hope the promise of a third book gives me...*twitch*But what if the world really ends in 2012? So many loose ends! *twitch, twitch*So much waiting! This review ends here. I cannot go on…I need…I need to go rock in a corner.

Gah!!!!

While I try to piece myself together, please enjoy some “free samples” of Lauren Oliver's beautiful writing in Delirium:

“You can't be happy unless you're unhappy sometimes."

“Love: a single word, a wispy thing, a word no bigger or longer than an edge. That's what it is: an edge; a razor. It draws up through the center of your life, cutting everything in two. Before and after. The rest of the world falls away on either side.”

“He who leaps for the sky may fall, it's true. But he may also fly.”

“I know that the whole point—the only point—is to find the things that matter, and hold on to them, and fight for them, and refuse to let them go.”

“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've been so used to thinking of what the borders are keeping out that I haven't considered that they're also penning us in.”

“Everytime he brushes me with his fingers, time seems to tether for a second, like it is in danger of dissolving. The whole world is dissolving, I decide, except for us. Us.”