Pandemonium (Delirium Trilogy #2) by Lauren Oliver

Title: Pandemonium (Delirium Trilogy #2)
Author: Lauren Oliver

Format: Paperback, 400 pages.  

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.
     In this electrifying follow-up to her acclaimed New York Times bestseller Delirium, Lauren Oliver sets Lena on a dangerous course that hurtles through the unregulated Wilds and into the heart of a growing resistance movement. This riveting, brilliant novel crackles with the fire of fierce defiance, forbidden romance, and the sparks of a revolution about to ignite.

My Rating: 3.5 stars ★★★1/2

My Thoughts: (This review is spoiler-free)

The over-arching plot of this book was extremely (I don't think I can emphasize that word enough) similar to that of other dystopian series, such as The Hunger Games and Matched. Thus, I found the majority of the book to be unexciting and, at least for me, most of the big "twists" were highly predictable.

That being said, I did manage to enjoy the book. As I've mentioned, the main plot lines are nothing to write home about, but the smaller, finer details are where the fresh ideas come in, and they are what really make this book worth reading. Subplots like the development of Blue's character and backstory, as well as the scene when Raven and Lena are hunting a rabbit, were extremely touching and complex. Other details, like Lena's inner dialogue while running, added a level of familiarity which helped me relate to Lena and kept me wanting to read more.

In this book Lena really comes into her own as a person. Delirium showed Lena opening her eyes to the world of the WIlds beyond her perfect structured walls; Pandemonium shows her deciding how she wants to go about it. She emerges as a strong female lead with a moral compass, not as much of a "follower" as she may have been before.

The book is narrated entirely from Lena's point of view as she alternates between the present and the past (with chapters titled "then" and "now") until the backstory catches up to the present time. At first I found this a little bit annoying and confusing, but overall it worked for the story; the story might not have been as successful if narrated straight through or in larger flashback chunks. 

In short, the main "skeleton" or basis of the book is a predictable second installment of a dystopian series; however, there are many interesting details or "redeeming qualities" that make this book worth reading. I plan to continue on to the third installment to see how everything resolves itself. 

Warnings: violence, death 

Other books you might like: Matched by Ally Condie; The Hunger Games trilogy by Suzanne Collins

The Forest of Hands and Teeth by Carrie Ryan

Title: The Forest of Hands and Teeth
Authors: Carrie Ryan
Format: Paperback, 336 pages.

In Mary's world there are simple truths. The Sisterhood always knows best. The Guardians will protect and serve. The Unconsecrated will never relent. And you must always mind the fence that surrounds the village; the fence that protects the village from the Forest of Hands and Teeth. But, slowly, Mary’s truths are failing her. She’s learning things she never wanted to know about the Sisterhood and its secrets, and the Guardians and their power, and about the Unconsecrated and their relentlessness. When the fence is breached and her world is thrown into chaos, she must choose between her village and her future—between the one she loves and the one who loves her. And she must face the truth about the Forest of Hands and Teeth. Could there be life outside a world surrounded in so much death?

My Rating: 4 stars ★★★★
My Thoughts: Reading this book was a strange experience for me. This was really the first zombie-themed book that has ever caught my eye, and I had seen a lot of positive reviews for it, so I was excited to give it a try. Then as I started reading, I felt so bored and depressed by the dystopian world that the protagonist, Mary, finds herself trapped in... yet, next thing I know, I was staying up all night to finish the book!

After finishing the book, I initially told myself that I didn' really like it and was overall disappointed. Then, in the following days, I keep randomly thinking about the book and the events in it, until I came to realize that I actually quite enjoyed the book after all! In fact, I even wound up choosing this novel for a recent poem-writing challenge hosted by The Happy Booker, which you can read HERE.

The Forest of Hands and Teeth Acrostic Poem

The Happy Booker is currently hosting a giveaway challenging participants to come up with an acrostic poem (acrostic poem: fancy terminology for a poem in which the first letters of each line put together spell a word or words) featuring their favorite vampire or zombie book. 

For my poem I chose The Forest of Hands and Teeth by Carrie Ryan, writing the poem from the point of view of the protagonist, Mary. In the novel, Mary keeps a photograph of a girl at the beach during pre-apocalyptic times, dreaming that one day she might also see the beach - I took inspiration from this :)

Trapped.

Here in this sad small town, until

Everything changed.

Find me a way

Out of this maze.

Running and running.

Endlessly

Searching.

Twists and turns, lead me to the

Ocean.

Foamy waters and salty air.

Only a bit farther til
Freedom.

Hoping.

Abandoning all that I know.

No turning back.

Driven by the image of a clear blue sea,

Searching.

Another day passes,

No more paths to follow.

Do I dare to open the gate?

Tearing through the forest,

Exposed.

Everything around me a vivid blur:

Thrashing and tumbling,

Hastening towards the sandy shore. 

As They Slip Away by Beth Revis

Title: As They Slip Away (Across the Universe #0.5)
Author: Beth Revis
Source: Free HERE; 48 pages

This novella is the story of the girl Amy meets in the rabbits fields in Across the Universe, and who is murdered in A Million Suns. The novella explores the backgrounds of this character, a singer named Selene, and several other background characters of the novels, including Harley, Kayleigh, Bartie, Victria, and Orion…and, of course, Luthe.

My Rating: 5 stars  ★★★★★
My Thoughts: woooooooo boy. This is some heavy stuff. Yet, that being said, it is also an extremely well written novella... captivating in a tragically beautiful way. In terms of plot, I think the description Beth Revis provides on her website (quoted above) tells more than enough. If I were to add any more details I think it'd spoil the story for other potential readers.

Although this is technically considered "book zero" or "book #0.5" in the series, I would definitely recommend reading this after having read one of the full novels. I read it after finishing Book #2: A Million Suns, and I think that timing is perfect since readers have then already been introduced to the protagonist of this novella (as well as other characters highlighted in the short story), so As They Slip Away reads like a retrospective look on the girl's life through her first-person point of view.

I personally always love novellas that give new insight to background characters, and this was no exception. In my mind, it helps expand the fictional world the author has created for me, showing me how this world isn't only real for the protagonists I encounter in the full novels, but also real for the seemingly insignificant characters too. It's also always interesting to see the same events pan out through different perspectives and viewpoints. I wholeheartedly recommend this to fans of the Across the Universe Trilogy, though it is quite a sad story, so approach with caution.

Warnings: abuse, murder, rape

Related Reviews: Across the Universe by Beth Revis

Across the Universe by Beth Revis

Title: Across the Universe
Author: Beth Revis
Source: Purchased; Hardcover 398 pages

WHAT DOES IT TAKE TO SURVIVE ABOARD A SPACESHIP FUELED BY LIES?

Amy is a cryogenically frozen passenger aboard the spaceship Godspeed. She has left her boyfriend, friends--and planet--behind to join her parents as a member of Project Ark Ship. Amy and her parents believe they will wake on a new planet, Centauri-Earth, three hundred years in the future. But fifty years before Godspeed's scheduled landing, cryo chamber 42 is mysteriously unplugged, and Amy is violently woken from her frozen slumber.

Someone tried to murder her.

Now, Amy is caught inside an enclosed world where nothing makes sense. Godspeed's 2,312 passengers have forfeited all control to Eldest, a tyrannical and frightening leader. And Elder, Eldest's rebellious teenage heir, is both fascinated with Amy and eager to discover whether he has what it takes to lead.

Amy desperately wants to trust Elder. But should she put her faith in a boy who has never seen life outside the ship's cold metal walls? All Amy knows is that she and Elder must race to unlock Godspeed's hidden secrets before whoever woke her tries to kill again.

My Rating: 5 stars (favorite!) ★★★★★ & ♥
My Thoughts: THIS BOOK WAS SO FREXING GOOD!
I'm just sitting here all asdgkhjlldfjkj. I can't believe I waited so long to read this! There were just so many aspects of the book that I enjoyed.

I didn't realize that this was a dystopian novel (I thought it purely Sci-Fi), but I was very pleasantly surprised. The dystopian features are so perfectly woven into the futuristic world aboard the Godspeed. It was very reminiscent of Matched by Allyson Condie, but with a Star Trek twist.

The author also does a wonderful job of contrasting the characters born into this new era with Amy, a girl from our contemporary time. Amy's accent, physical appearance and way of thinking are so starkly different from those currently living on the Godspeed, which I found to be very interesting. The use of a two person narrative (Elder and Amy) really helped elucidate these differences even more for the reader. I'm not always a fan of books with multiple narrators, but I think it worked really well here.

Revis also makes a lot of historical references, such as the Civil War, which I loved. Not only did these references help highlight the differences in characters' perception, as I mentioned before, but they also made the book more relatable to me as a reader. My knowledge of these events made me feel like I was a character, like I could be Amy or some other Sol-Earth human in this new world.

I also enjoyed the many unique characters in the book, all of which were developed fairly well. I found myself getting attached to certain characters, rooting for the success of some and the demise of others. Especially with the murder mystery type plotline, you get sucked in trying to figure out "whodunnit?". 

This is that type of book that gives you a twinge of sadness when you get to the last page because you don't want the story to be over so soon. I can't wait to read the next book in the series! I would definitely recommend this to lovers of science fiction and/or dystopia.

Warnings: sex, murder

Cover Musings: I quite enjoy the cover. Having the stars in the background fits really well with the recurring image of the stars in the story. It's also reversible, which is really cool! The flipside shows a map of the Godspeed ship.

Next in Series: A Million Suns
If you like this you might also like: Matched by Ally Condie

Wither by Lauren DeStefano

Title: Wither (The Chemical Garden Trilogy #1)
Author: Lauren DeStefano
Source: ARC 368 pages
Publication Info: March 22, 2011; Simon&Schuster
Challenges: DAC 2011; Dystopia; 50 States

 By age sixteen, Rhine Ellery has four years left to live. She can thank modern science for this genetic time bomb. A botched effort to create a perfect race has left all males with a lifespan of 25 years, and females with a lifespan of 20 years. Geneticists are seeking a miracle antidote to restore the human race, desperate orphans crowd the population, crime and poverty have skyrocketed, and young girls are being kidnapped and sold as polygamous brides to bear more children.

When Rhine is kidnapped and sold as a bride, she vows to do all she can to escape. Her husband, Linden, is hopelessly in love with her, and Rhine can’t bring herself to hate him as much as she’d like to. He opens her to a magical world of wealth and illusion she never thought existed, and it almost makes it possible to ignore the clock ticking away her short life. But Rhine quickly learns that not everything in her new husband’s strange world is what it seems. Her father-in-law, an eccentric doctor bent on finding the antidote, is hoarding corpses in the basement. Her fellow sister wives are to be trusted one day and feared the next, and Rhine is desperate to communicate to her twin brother that she is safe and alive. Will Rhine be able to escape--before her time runs out?

My Rating: 4 stars ★★★★
My Thoughts: 

This book is so creepy awesome! Well, it actually is creepy, but in a good way!!! There were so many lines in the book that sent shivers up my spine! The whole concept of this virus that causes all women to die at age 20, and men to die at 25, is brilliant – as well as very scary for me. I could not imagine living in a world like that. And the fact that North America is the only continent left standing after a nuclear war (all the other land masses got buried underwater) – also super scary!! But these fearsome elements created such a complex and interesting dystopia. It was a world I was happy to get lost in, as long as it only exists in the book rather than real life!!  I think the reason I found it so frightening was because these things are not completely improbable for the future, y’know?

I truly loved all the characters in this novel. I enjoyed the contrast between Rhine, Jenna, and Cecily - it was interesting to see many different girls’ reactions to the situation. I also liked Gabriel and Linden, who both seem like very complex people, and I’m hoping we get to learn more about them both in the next novel. Now, let’s talk about House Master Vaughn. *shudders* DeStefano definitely succeeded in creating a character that makes your skin crawl!!! In my mind, he reminded me a little bit of President Snow (from The Hunger Games) on the creeper/control-freak scale. Seriously, he is one extremely eerie man. That being said, the book would be severely bereft if he was any less macabre. His character brought so much to the story.

I cannot wait for the next book in this series!!!!! A great debut novel. If you like science fiction or dystopia, I would highly recommend this to you.

Cover Musings: While the cover is beautiful, I think the two circles connecting the wedding ring and the caged bird are a bit too blatant. It’s already obvious that Rhine feels like a prisoner because of her forced marriage – do we really need the cover to spell it out for us like that? It’s insulting to our intelligence as readers. What do you guys think?

Warnings: kidnapping, murder

Teaser Tuesday #7

Teaser Tuesday is a weekly bookish meme hosted by MizB of Should Be Reading. Anyone can play along! Just do the following:

• Grab your current read
• Open to a random page
• Share two (2) “teaser” sentences from somewhere on that page
• BE CAREFUL NOT TO INCLUDE SPOILERS! (make sure that what you share doesn’t give too much away! You don’t want to ruin the book for others!)
• Share the title & author, too, so that other TT participants can add the book to their TBR Lists if they like your teasers!

Be sure to comment with a link to your Tuesday Teaser post (or if you don't have a blog, share your teasers in a comment) so I can see what you're reading =)

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Title: Wither

Author: Lauren DeStefano

I have always been fascinated by the ocean, to dip a limb beneath its surface and know that I'm touching eternity, that it goes on forever until it begins here again. Somewhere beneath it lies the ruins of colorful Japan, and Rose's favorite, India, the nations that could not survive. This lone continent is all that's left.

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