Pandemonium ~ Lauren Oliver (Delirium #2)

★★★★☆

Better than the first in a lot of ways, and a little bit worse in others.

But you can build a future out of anything. A scrap, a flicker. The desire to go forward, slowly, one foot at a time. You can build an airy city out of ruins.

I originally rated this 5 stars after finishing it, but upon reflection, it really was more of a 4 star read for me.

But it was still awesome!

Grief is like sinking, like being buried. I am in water the tawny color of kicked-up dirt. Every breath is full of choking. There is nothing to hold on to, no sides, no way to claw myself up. There is nothing to do but let go.

Let go. Feel the weight all around you, feel the squeezing of your lungs, the slow, low pressure. Let yourself go deeper. There is nothing but bottom. There is nothing but the taste of metal, and the echoes of old things, and days that look like darkness.

Honestly, this felt like a different series a little bit. Part of that was definitely the lack of chapter epigraphs (which I briefly mourned) and definitely the fact that the only character shared throughout was the Lena herself (and she made a bit point about that) and definitely the fact that the chapters alternated between past and present - "now" and "then".

This installment actually made me cry a lot. It was intense and hard-hitting with more tangible stakes and consequences. Raven was an excellent addition and the Invalid band she travels with were great, though Tack deserved a little more page time to really earn his place at the end.

While Alex in the first book was a bit of a stalker and Julian in this book was a voyeur, I actually genuinely liked him. He was sweet and complex, and I'm also just absolute trash for the trope when two people have to sleep in close quarters together when they aren't (yet) in a relationship. I don't know why, but it just sustains me like no other.

That said, I did not like the pacing or how the very ending was handled. It was a little bit of a deus ex machina and didn't feel entirely earned. Some elements of the entire novel felt a little too Divergent-ish.