A Hush, Hush Fan Guest Post: Pandemonium Review

We're very excited to introduce Momo from Books Over Boys, an awesome book reviewer and Hush, Hush Fan! *and a fellow Blue October fan!* She recently read Lauren Oliver's DELIRIUM and PANDEMONIUM and was gracious enough to let us share her review of PANDEMONIUM, the heart-stopping second book of the trilogy, and our March Featured Fiction. We highly recommend this book too but she sums it up much better than we can. Thank you, Momo!

*The contest is now closed. Thank you to all who entered,

 and congratulations to the winner, Julie!*

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Please visit Books Over Boys to see this review in its original format, as well as many others

Title: Pandemonium

Author: Lauren Oliver
Publisher: HarperCollins
Release Date: February 28th, 2012

Find Lauren Oliver Online: Twitter | Website | Blog | Facebook

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.





My $0.02

I didn’t think I was going to be this affected by this book. Everyone has a number one most favorite book. Well, that book became your number one most favorite because there was something about it that touched you personally or something about it that tugged and hooked onto you—hard. After you find a book like that and the feelings you felt when you read it, you’re constantly on the search for the next book that will deliver that same high to you—a higher high than that favorite book, even. My point is, those kinds of books are rare. You can read a thousand books and all of them could become your favorite but only a small percentage of those would be your most favorite; you’ll like all of them but you’ll only love a few of them. Okay, I shouldn’t make this such a general statement because I’m not sure about anyone else but for me, this is true.

It’s no secret that Delirium, very quickly, became one of these books for me. Something about everything in those 441 pages that made it unforgettable. The words tumbled out of the pages and whispered sweet nothings into my soul (no joke!) and before I knew it, I couldn’t, I wouldn’t not love this amazing series. So, of course I was very eager to dive head first into Pandemonium. When I start the next book in a series, I get bored—sometimes. For example, with the way how Delirium ended, I wanted to open up Pandemonium and get taken right back to the very second where Lena was before my eyes swam across that last word in Delirium. But naturally, that didn’t happen. Various times during my reading of Pandemonium, I kept searching for that little thing that would stand out to me and make it better than Delirium and overall, Pandemonium was highly enjoyable but for some reason, it was…slow to me. I was looking for that spark that would pull me back in whenever I lost a little bit of interest.

Oliver distributed those “sparks” perfectly—right when I was going to close the book and stop my reading for the night, I was pulled in for another few pages that turned into one more chapter, three more chapters, five more chapters—un. put. down. able! The slowness for me came when Lena took us back to the then parts of the book, which is ironic because at the beginning, I wanted so badly to know what happened to her after…the ending in Delirium. All of this was overlooked as I got to the ending. I knew from many people that the ending in Pandemonium was going to be a killer; I prepared myself, or at least, I tried to. But no matter how much I tried to prepare myself, when I got to that very last page, the tears came and came and came and came. I was so overwhelmed with emotions that I became hysterical; my hands were shaking, I ran out of breath, I was making weird shrieking noises—I was a mess. I couldn’t and I still can’t even comprehend…deep sigh.

Pandemonium definitely had a different feel to it than Delirium. I’m not the biggest fan of dystopians and I guess one reason why I love Delirium so much is because it didn’t really feel like a dystopian to me, not completely. But when I got to Pandemonium, those dystopian factors were very present and it kind of drew me away from the story. A lot of bombs were dropped into the plot; Oliver has a way of hinting at them as you read but they’re so vague you hardly pay any attention to them so when they’re brought to light, you’re dumbfounded, left speechless. I didn’t see a bunch of them coming but after they were explained the oooh effect set it. Also, Oliver has a way of creating the biggest impact of the entire book on the very last two pages of both books. So, I highly recommend you staying away from those two pages because without a doubt, you will be spoiled rotten if you flip to them, even accidentally, so don’t even think about looking back there.

Everything that happens in Pandemonium builds you up for the earth-shattering ending. When people say that the ending will kill you, trust them because they know what they’re talking about! Pandemonium is a swirl of crazy emotions: angst and confusion and happiness and pain and sadness and cold-heartedness, and so many other emotions that I can’t even identify right now. Needless to say, Oliver has made a crazy, obsessive fan out of me and I absolutely cannot wait for Requiem—I’ll seriously do anything to get my hands on a copy. Anything, I tell you! I can’t even believe that we have to wait basically a whole year until we get to see that pretty on shelves! WAAAH! Anywho, read Pandemonium, stat! If you’ve read Delirium and you still haven’t gotten to Pandemonium…well, then you’re crazy and I can’t be friends with a crazy! ;) Trust me, read it…because you’ll fall insanely in love with it! You will, I dare you not too!

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And because we love PANDEMONIUM and Momo's review so much we want to give YOU a chance to win a copy! All you have to do is comment on this post. Please be sure to leave an email address so we can contact the winner. The contest is open internationally and will close on Tuesday March 20th at midnight EDT. One winner will be selected at random.

GOOD LUCK and Happy Reading!