Pandemonium by: Lauren Oliver

Pandemonium by: Lauren Oliver
Publisher: HarperTeen
Publication Date: February 28, 2013
Genre: Dystopian, Romance
Page Count: 375
Author Blog: Lauren Oliver
Buy the Book: Amazon, Barnes and Noble

Summary from Goodreads:

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.

Lauren Oliver delivers an electrifying follow-up to her acclaimed New York Times bestseller, Delirium. This riveting, brilliant novel crackles with the fire of fierce defiance, forbidden romance, and the sparks of a revolution about to ignite.

Teaser:

“ If you take, we will take back. Steal from us, and we will rob you blind. When you squeeze, we will hit.

This is the way the world is made now.”

My Review:

Pandemonium is a poetic story of resilience and what someone is willing to go through to stand up for what’s right. In a world under a horrible illusion, Lena is one of the few who has seen the truth, but not without a cost.

Lena is one of the most resilient characters I have ever seen in YA. She comes from a regular family in Portland, where she lived well and had sufficient means. She goes from that lifestyle to living underground with the Uncureds, never sure if they have enough food to get by and having to work all day. Lena and all of the people around her are against the deliria. They are roughing the wilderness because they won’t succumb to the government’s horrid procedure that each citizen is required to receive.

Pandemonium switches Lena’s perspective from her in present day to her half a year (or so) ago. I wasn’t sure if I’d like this at first, but then found that it was kind of essential in getting the whole story out and a very clever thing for Lauren to do.

Undercover, Lena is working with Raven, the woman who rescued her following the events of Delirium, and Tack, a member of their group. Together,they are just like any other family living in New York City, only they are wearing deep masks.

Mourning the loss of Alex, Lena struggles at times to make it through, but she always prevails, always finds a way to move forward. She meets Julian seemingly by chance and starts to believe that there is more than meets the eye for the poster-boy of Deliria Free America, an organization Lena Morgan Jones is a member of. He is afraid of the procedure and if he will survive it. Once he gets to know Lena, he begins to realize that not all Uncureds are hostile and what his father has been teaching him all his life is a lie.

I loved reading conversations between Julian and Lena. I think they have amazing chemistry. Fair warning, Pandemonium has a wicked cliffhanger, so prepare yourself for jaw-dropping, yelping, and other declarations of blissful frustration.

I cannot wait to read Requiem in 2013!

Other books by Lauren Oliver:

 

Review: Under the Never Sky by: Veronica Rossi

Under the Never Sky by: Veronica Rossi

Publication Date: January 3, 2012

Publisher: Harper Collins

Series: Under the Never Sky #1

Page Count: 374

Format: Hardcover

Buy the Book: Amazon

Summary from Goodreads:

 Since she'd been on the outside, she'd survived an Aether storm, she'd had a knife held to her throat, and she'd seen men murdered. This was worse.
Exiled from her home, the enclosed city of Reverie, Aria knows her chances of surviving in the outer wasteland - known as The Death Shop - are slim. If the cannibals don't get her, the violent, electrified energy storms will. She's been taught that the very air she breathes can kill her. Then Aria meets an Outsider named Perry. He's wild - a savage - and her only hope of staying alive.
A hunter for his tribe in a merciless landscape, Perry views Aria as sheltered and fragile - everything he would expect from a Dweller. But he needs Aria's help too; she alone holds the key to his redemption. Opposites in nearly every way, Aria and Perry must accept each other to survive. Their unlikely alliance forges a bond that will determine the fate of all who live under the never sky. 

 My Review:

The girl on the cover is what drew me in to read Under the Never Sky. She looks really rebellious and edgy. One thing I learned from reading this was that the cover portrays the story spectacularly.

 Under the Never Sky switches perspectives from Aria to Perry. Aria is what they call a Dweller, someone who lives inside the pods, which are areas closed off from the Outside. The main threat of the Outside to Dwellers is the Aether, a perpetual storm constantly brewing in what Aria calls the "never sky".

What I liked about this as far as dystopia goes is that it formed a plot all on its own and had virtually no stereotypes so often seen in dystopian books. There were some similarities but it was still significantly unique.

The world of Under the Never Sky is what amazed me most. In the places that aren't closed off in pods, the Aether storm rages in vicious rivulets across the sky. There are cannibals lurking and wolves and who knows what else out there. With Perry's help, Aria discovers a part of herself she never knew and a relationship that she never even dreamed would happen.

Perry is what people like Aria call Savages. Ridden with disease and infection, an encounter with one is the last thing Aria wants. When she meets up with Perry it takes a while for her suspicions to go away and let her see who he really is. Perry is a Scire and a Seer, a person with extremely heightened sense of sight and smell. 

From then on, Aria and Perry set off on an adventure that will shock them both. It definitely surprised me a good bit. The ending kind of confused me. There wasn't much elaboration on what happened. I couldn't really comprehend it well.

  

Official Rating:

 Four Un-Birthday Cakes!

Review: Cinder by: Marissa Meyer

Cinder by: Marissa Meyer

Publicaiton Date: January 3, 2012

Publisher: Feiwel and Friends

Page Count: 387

Format: Hardcover

Series: Lunar Chronicles #1

Buy the Book: Amazon

Summary from Goodreads:

Humans and androids crowd the raucous streets of New Beijing. A deadly plague ravages the population. From space, a ruthless lunar people watch, waiting to make their move. No one knows that Earth's fate hinges on one girl... Cinder, a gifted mechanic, is a cyborg. She's a second-class citizen with a mysterious past, reviled by her stepmother and blamed for her stepsister's illness. But when her life becomes intertwined with the handsome Prince Kai's, she suddenly finds herself at the center of an intergalactic struggle, and a forbidden attraction. Caught between duty and freedom, loyalty and betrayal, she must uncover secrets about her past in order to protect her world's future

 My Review:

From what I was hearing about this book from other bloggers and websites, I thought it was just going to be a retelling of Cinderella in a futuristic, cyborg world. This was so much more! It had mystery and sabotage that I certainly wasn't expecting.

Cinder is a mechanic in New Beijing, one of the best. She has the typical Cinderella background with no biological parents, a wicked stepmother and two stepsisters. There's one catch. She was made a cyborg and has a mechanical system keeping her alive. 

Through every chapter, my mouth dropped open several times as new secrets and mysteries were revealed. Cinder keeps learning things about her life she never knew and that the life she thought she had was a lie. Her stepmother volunteers her for a cyborg-only medical research program searching for a cure to a disease that has ravaged New Beijing. Thinking she is going to die, she goes in and cannot be more awestruck at what she learns.

There's this whole other race seeking dominance over humans, called the Lunars. They have this ability to basically brainwash any human and are vile and manipulative. The Lunar Queen is seeking to marry Prince Kai and gain power over the Earthens.

Kai and Cinder meet seemingly by chance when he visits her mechanic shop. He has no idea she is a cyborg, which adds an intriguing element to their relationship. Cyborgs are abominations according to most.  Kai asks Cinder to attend the ball with him and she declines. She can't imagine  someone like him being seen with her.  

Let me just say, I love love love Kai. He is young and about to become king after his father dies of the deathly plague. Unlike the commoners, he tries endlessly to escape the mind games of the Lunar Queen and her subjects. He knows she is up to much more than she says.

The dystopian setting in this book is one of my favorites. Even though there is a plague ravaging the population, gadgetry and machines are rampant and creatively imagined. 

Official Rating:

  Four and a Half Un-Birthday Cakes!

Across the Universe by: Beth Revis

Across the Universe by: Beth Revis
Publication Date: January 11, 2011
Publisher: Razorbill
Page count: 398
Format: Hardcover
Series: Across the Universe #1
Buy the book: Amazon

 Summary from Goodreads:

Seventeen-year-old Amy joins her parents as frozen cargo aboard the vast spaceship Godspeed and expects to awaken on a new planet, three hundred years in the future. Never could she have known that her frozen slumber would come to an end fifty years too soon and that she would be thrust into the brave new world of a spaceship that lives by its own rules.

Amy quickly realizes that her awakening was no mere computer malfunction. Someone - one of the few thousand inhabitants of the spaceship - tried to kill her. And if Amy doesn't do something soon, her parents will be next.

Now, Amy must race to unlock Godspeed's hidden secrets. But out of her list of murder suspects, there's only one who matters: Elder, the future leader of the ship and the love she could never have seen coming.

My Review:

I will admit that going into the book I had not been expecting a whole lot. I’d picked it up at the library on a random excursion a few weeks ago, although when I finally got around to reading it, I couldn’t put it down.

Beginning with Amy’s boarding Godspeed, a spaceship set to land on a planet 300 years into the future, the story was an enticing and very original one. A brilliant mixture of sci-fi, dystopian, romance, and mystery, I was blown away by Beth Revis’s emotion, suspense, and terrifying plot twists. Trust me, once you start reading the book, there’s no way you’ll ever be able to stop wondering about this crazy spaceship Godspeed, its murderer, and what secrets hide within its conveniently forgotten history.

I think one of the driving factors of the book, alongside its heart-stopping aforementioned plot, is its characters. Amy and Elder (the soon-to-be ruler and love interest) tell the story in alternating point of view, leaving me screaming in several instances, “NO! Go back to Amy/Elder! What’s going on?!” Their perspectives are consistent and believable, and they are definitely dynamic as we watch them unravel Godspeed’s secrets and learn a lot about themselves and each other along the way. Then there are the other residents of the ship, mysterious and fascinating, adding depth to Amy, Elder, and Elder’s world.

And Elder’s world! There’s so much to say about it—there is the Eldest, a tyrannical leader who divides the society up into three distinguished classes; there are the strange animals and the bizarre majority of the population; also notable is the technology, which Beth did an excellent job making believable and utterly sci-fi.

All in all, it was an exceptional and unforgettable read that I would recommend to anyone and everyone. I thoroughly enjoyed it, and I’m sure you will too.

Official Rating:

Five Un-Birthday Cakes!

              Allie

Delirium by: Lauren Oliver

Delirium by: Lauren Oliver
Publication Date: February 1, 2011, Special Edition - August 1, 2011
Publisher: HarperTeen
Page Count: 441
Format: Hardcover 1st Edition
Series: Delirium #1
Buy the Book: Amazon

Summary from Goodreads:

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.

My Review:

Disclaimer: The cover above is the Special Edition cover, just because I love it so much. The one I own is the first edition, though.

I read Delirium shortly after the release date. I just decided it was so amazing that it deserved a review. It dragged me in, hook, line, and sinker! The writing style of Lauren Oliver is officially one of my all-time favorites.  She described the dystopian version of Portland, Maine, so majestically and really captured all of the drastically transformed elements of society that come with dystopia.

The setting of Portland in itself is something I really enjoyed in itself. Even though it was a fenced town and an overall dystopian environment, I loved all of the coves and beaches mentioned and visited in the book.

Lena is an incredibly strong character. Sure, she complies with all of the terms of the procedure and the laws at first and she had all of her life up until the events of the book, but still, she has the spirit of a fighter. I love female characters like that. 

As far as the genre goes, this was on of the heaviest dystopian books I've read, and I love the genre.  It was a lot more graphic in certian parts about the consequences of the law being broken. I think that when Lena realized the true nature of the government and their intentions, she was more eager to rebel, and then when she met Alex, it was the domino effect from there.

Alex and Lena's relationship gradually came into being, which I appreciated. I feel like, too many times in YA books that the relationships happen too fast, but this one was perfectly paced. 

The ending was a moderately large cliffhanger. I think, when I finished it, I literally slammed shut the book and scrambled to the computer to find the release date of the next book, foolishly hoping it would be the next day. This book comes highly recommended, just in case you are some uncivilized person who hasn't read this yet.

Official Rating:

Five Un-Birthday Cakes!

              Sara

Catching Fire by: Suzanne Collins

Catching Fire by: Suzanne Collins
Published: September 1, 2009
Publisher: Scholastic Press
Page Count: 391
Format: Hardcover
Series: Hunger Games #2

Summary from Amazon:

Every year in Panem, the dystopic nation that exists where the U.S. used to be, the Capitol holds a televised tournament in which two teen "tributes" from each of the surrounding districts fight a gruesome battle to the death. In The Hunger Games, Katniss Everdeen and Peeta Mellark, the tributes from impoverished District Twelve, thwarted the Gamemakers, forcing them to let both teens survive. In this rabidly anticipated sequel, Katniss, again the narrator, returns home to find herself more the center of attention than ever. The sinister President Snow surprises her with a visit, and Katniss’s fear when Snow meets with her alone is both palpable and justified. Catching Fire is divided into three parts: Katniss and Peeta’s mandatory Victory Tour through the districts, preparations for the 75th Annual Hunger Games, and a truncated version of the Games themselves. Slower paced than its predecessor, this sequel explores the nation of Panem: its power structure, rumors of a secret district, and a spreading rebellion, ignited by Katniss and Peeta’s subversive victory. Katniss also deepens as a character. Though initially bewildered by the attention paid to her, she comes almost to embrace her status as the rebels’ symbolic leader. Though more of the story takes place outside the arena than within, this sequel has enough action to please Hunger Games fans and leaves enough questions tantalizingly unanswered for readers to be desperate for the next installment.

My Review:

   I don't know what possessed me to procrastinate in reading this book! It had been sitting on my shelf for like a year. Perhaps I just didn't want the series to be over so fast. At least now I can get right into Mockingjay, because boy, that was some cliffhanger!
  Catching Fire started off a bit slow for me but at about the second or third chapter, it abrubtly caught me on and wouldn't let me go til the end. There is definitely a lot more mystery and wonder in this book than the first. The Capital just seems relentless and  won't let Katniss have the moment of peace she so rightly deserves. She thought that maybe the publicity would die down after the Victory Tour, but President Snow always has some evil plan up his sleeves, it seems.
  There wasn't much Gale in this book, possibly even less than the first, which kind of upset me at first but then I got so wrapped up in the action that Gale didn't even cross my mind much. Just by the ending, I could tell that he is going to be in Mockingjay a fair amount, which made me feel better.
  We meet a lot of the previous Hunger Games victors in this book and that was exciting for me. Some of them were on drugs or drinking like Haymitch and that made me further understand the toll that the Games take on the tributes. But a lot of them like Finnick Odair and Johanna Mason are still young and strong.
  Katniss makes the transition in this book from fighting her own survival as she did in the Games to fighting for everyone elses. She thinks that no one else should suffer from the repurcussions of both Peeta and her winning the previous year. I admire the way she thinks so selflessly like that. I wonder if she would have known what an effect her and Peeta's winning would be on Panem, if she would have let herself survive. I hope so. Because the ending was so plain and simple yet so dangerously hinting at the plot for the last book.

 
  

Open Minds by: Susan Kaye Quinn

Open Minds by: Susan Kaye Quinn
Published: November 1, 2011
Publisher: Self-Published
Page Count: 326
Format: Signed paperback
Series: #1 in Mindjack series
Buy the Book: Amazon

Summary from Goodreads:

 When everyone reads minds, a secret is a dangerous thing to keep.

Sixteen-year-old Kira Moore is a zero, someone who can’t read thoughts or be read by others. Zeros are outcasts who can’t be trusted, leaving her no chance with Raf, a regular mindreader and the best friend she secretly loves. When she accidentally controls Raf’s mind and nearly kills him, Kira tries to hide her frightening new ability from her family and an increasingly suspicious Raf. But lies tangle around her, and she’s dragged deep into a hidden world of mindjackers, where having to mind control everyone she loves is just the beginning of the deadly choices before her.

“Quinn has created an intensely dangerous world both inside the minds of her characters and outside–a world that left me asking myself questions I would never have asked before. When you can literally control the thoughts of others, how far will you go?” — Michelle Davidson Argyle, Author of Monarch and Cinders

My Review:

      Before I begin, let me thank Susan Quinn for giving away a copy of her book and Amanda at Letters Inside Out for hosting the giveaway. It was the first giveaway I won as a book blogger!
      This book was probably one of the most impressive displays of world building I have ever experienced. The book was set in Chicago New Metro, which seemed to me to be the futuristic version of the Chicago we know now. There were a lot of elements that had been changed, which,  being a lover of dystopian, I enjoyed reading a lot. For example, people drove hydro cars that had to be charged instead of gassed. All of that futuristic stuff really helped me visualize this new version of the world we know.
     I've read a couple books about people who can read minds being separated from society for that, so a book about everyone who can read minds except for one girl, Kira, was quite an amazing new take on things.
    As Kira goes through the process of realizing she is a jacker, I began to really admire her character because once she finds out about the Clan and their plans, she instantly thinks about all the people she would be hurting if she told anyone that she is a jacker. She has limitless care for everyone she cares about and sometimes people she hardly knows.
   Kira goes through such a transformation in such a short time, I had to wonder if her head would just explode right there! She discovers so many things about herself and uncovers truths about her family. Beyond being a dystopian story, it was kind of contemporary in the sense that she grew to become not neccesarily the person she wanted to, but a person her parents and she can be proud of. She shows remarkable courage at the end, however, and with the great first person point of view, I was really able to get into her head and connect with her as a reader.

    
    
 

Sapphique By: Catherine Fisher

Sapphique by: Catherine Fisher
Published: Dec. 28, 2010
Publisher: Dial Books
Series: #2 in Incarceron Series
Format: Hardcover
Page Count: 480
Buy the Book: http://amzn.to/vHDQwj


Summary from Goodreads:

        Finn has escaped from the terrible living Prison of Incarceron, but its memory torments him, because his brother Keiro is still inside. Outside, Claudia insists he must be king, but Finn doubts even his own identity. Is he the lost prince Giles? Or are his memories no more than another construct of his imprisonment? And can you be free if your friends are still captive? Can you be free if your world is frozen in time? Can you be free if you don't even know who you are? Inside Incarceron, has the crazy sorcerer Rix really found the Glove of Sapphique, the only man the Prison ever loved. Sapphique, whose image fires Incarceron with the desire to escape its own nature. If Keiro steals the glove, will he bring destruction to the world? Inside. Outside. All seeking freedom. Like Sapphique.


My Review:

         This book surprised me a little bit getting into it. It switches point of view between Claudia, Finn, Attia, and Jared. The general POV is third person but still, the author highlights each of those characters thoughts throughout the book, which I enjoyed. While reading, I had to remind myself a few times that it was Dystopian. The Era is portrayed as a flawless 16th century kingdom and it is hard to see through it. The way Catherine describes this is amazing to say the least. She created the most vivid visions of both The Realm and Incarceron.
         This time, we got a better insight into Keiro, Attia, and Jared's characters, as they weren't nearly as present in the first book, Incarceron. I know that Kerio is always fighting his nature and all that but his character seemed really hardened and dangerous most of the time. It really displayed what life Inside the Prison does to people like him. I found myself questioning whether he would ever try to save any of his companions or if survival was his priorital concern. Attia's strength is a lot more prominent in this book, even though she is still considered a slave. She is willing to to whatever it takes to save everyone from a terrible fate. Jared is fighting for his life with the disease that lives inside him and his resilience is shown throughout the pages.

       This book, as well as the first in the series, was not predictable at all. I love books like that, where I had no inkling as to what was going to happen next. It kept my on edge and curious all the way through.