Delirium and Pandemonium by Lauren Oliver

            

It may seem a little odd for me to review the second book in this trilogy without reviewing the first, but the truth is that I really didn’t get along with Oliver’s first novel in this series; Delirium. I had looked forward to reading it after hearing so many good reviews, and I thought the basis of the novel was fascinating, as it is set in a world where love is seen as a disease. Although love is undeniably the best thing in our world, it can also be argued that without love there wouldn’t be heartbreak, depression, suicide, alcoholics, abuse… But I found the novel itself to be so disappointing. The character of Lena was an empty shell; she had almost no personality, and her relationship with Alex was predictable and without intrigue. It seemed as though Oliver was going through the motions of the story she had created; there exists a world without love, so ofcourse the main character must fall in love. But I didn’t believe Lena’s love story; there seemed to be no reason why her and Alex fell in love other than the author said so. The only relationship that I did enjoy in Delirium was the friendship between Lena and Hana. After I finished Delirium I was completely discouraged from continuing with the series, and I started reading Ally Condie’s Matched instead. But then I read a review of another reader who has disliked Delirium, but promised that the series vastly improved in Pandemonium. So I gave it a try, and I was pleasantly surprised.

A lowdown on the story so far: Lena lives in Portland, one of the many cities across the country that believes love is a disease, known as amor deliria nervosa. If one is ‘infected’ with the disease, they could be thrown in the terrifying prison known as the Crypt, or even killed. Once they reach their eighteenth birthday, each citizen is administered with the cure; a surgical procedure which removes any trace of love from their brains. They are then matched with a suitable partner so they may procreate. But they are cold, distant and do not care about anyone. Lena once yearned for her own cure, but after meeting Alex, she begins to question the authority of her community. They soon fall in love and plan their escape to the Wilds, the place on the outskirts of the city where Alex is from. But when the night comes for them to go over the fence, they are separated, and Lena must run away from all that she has known, completely alone. Lena begins a new life in New York as a part of the resistance, which includes following Julian Fineman, the son of Thomas Fineman, leader of the DFA – Deliria Free America.

Lena has grown in the space between Pandemonium and Delirium; she is strong, defiant and passionate. I found the boring, predictable Lena from Delirium gone, and I loved the fire that can now be seen in her. She is finally a real character, someone that reader can empathize with and respect. I also adored the love story between Lena and Julian. Although some readers may be outraged that she has fallen in love so quickly after losing Alex, I found that this relationship had a real foundation, and was so much more believable; I found myself falling in love with him right alongside her.

Reading Pandemonium has finally got me hooked on Oliver’s series, and after the shocking ending of the novel, I couldn’t wait another minute to read Requiem.

Before I Fall by Lauren Oliver

I first became interested in Lauren Oliver after hearing of all the good reviews her Delirium series has received. You may have noticed that I’ve a bit of a dystopian junkie (see here, here and here for some examples…), so naturally Oliver’s trilogy was high up on my to-read list. This was when I first noticed Before I Fall, a story about Sam, a popular high school girl with exciting friends and a wonderful boyfriend, who after attending a house party at her childhood best friend Kent McFuller’s house, dies in a car accident. She then gets stuck in a seemingly endless cycle of reliving her last day over and over again. What would you do if you knew that today was to be your last day on earth? Would you do anything differently?

I didn’t have particularly high hopes for this novel. I don’t know why, but I always find that books that focus on the themes of death and dying seem unable to live up to such a huge, poignant theme. But I was wrong, and this book completely blew me away.

Before I Fall is the most heartbreaking novel I have read in a long time. I was crying on and off throughout the entire book, and I was astounded by Oliver’s incredible talent of bringing me to tears with a single sentence.

“[he’s] the kind of guy who deserves the kind of girl who wears cashmere sweaters and is really good at crossword puzzles, or plays the violin, or volunteers at soup kitchens. Someone nice and normal and honest. The pain in my stomach intensifies, as though something’s caught in there, snapping away at my insides. I could never be good enough for him. Even if I lived the same day into infinity, I could never be good enough.”

During the first chapter I didn’t warm to Sam’s character at all, which is kind of the point. She is stuck-up, arrogant and at times downright cruel. She disregards her family and believes she is in love with her empty-headed jock boyfriend, even going as far as planning to lose her virginity to him that night. After she is killed and rewinds time to go through the motions of her last day again and again, the little details start to make themselves known to her. She begins to notice the cruel twist of her boyfriend’s sneer, the insecurities that lie deep within her best friend, the detail and love put into the Valentines note she receives from Kent, and the ghosts in the eyes of her lost classmate Juliet. Sam slowly discovers how she is capable of changing the lives of those around her, with only the smallest of gestures, but also discovers how some wounds are too deep to be healed.

I especially love the attention Oliver pays to her characters, as she slowly delves beneath the surface and builds them up as people in the reader’s minds. When you first meet a person, or make a new friend, everything about them is not on the surface for you to see. It takes time to discover their fears, hopes, dreams and desires. You learn bit by bit that they are flawed, and that that is what makes them whole. They are not character profiles, but people. Oliver truly turns her characters into people, especially with Lindsay, Kent and Sam. Their inner selves are revealed slowly, layer by layer.

This novel really made me question what I value in life, and how some things that I believed to be important perhaps aren’t important at all.

“I think about letting go – of the trees and the grass and sky and the red-streaked clouds on the horizon – letting it all drop away from me like a veil. Maybe there will be something spectacular underneath.”

The Hunger Games: Catching Fire

I know this film came out a few months ago, and I’m very late jumping on the bandwagon, but since I was in Southeast Asia when the film actually came out, I was a bit late seeing it. I watched the first film before reading any of the books (and loved it), then I proceeded to read all three of Suzanne Collins’ novels (and loved them!).

If you haven’t seen the second Hunger Games film yet, here’s a little breakdown. Katniss and Peeta have survived the Hunger Games and returned to District 12, where they now live in the Victor’s Village with Haymitch. But all is not well; after Katniss and Peeta almost ate poisoned berries in the arena rather than having to kill eachother, Katniss has unknowing become a symbol of revolution for the districts, and unrest is brewing. Katniss must do everything she can to put on a front, and pretend all is well to protect the people she loves. But will it be enough?

I find that often when I adore a book which is turned into a film, I don’t get on so well with the film. The characters aren’t quite how you think they should be, or the plot is altered somewhat to cater for the big screen. This was the case with the Harry Potter films and the Twilight films (don’t even get me started with the Twilight films) – I was disappointed with the large plot sections that were left out, some of my favourite parts weren’t portrayed in the way I had imagined them to be, and not to mention that I really dislike Daniel Radcliffe and Kristen Stewart as actors. But I absolutely adore Jennifer Lawrence. Not just because she falls over at Academy Awards Ceremonies or fangirls over Jack Nicolson, but because she is a very good actress, and I think she is the only one who could properly play Katniss Everdeen. She is the perfect mixture of brave, strong, humble and selfless. Lawrence’s acting is so raw and emotional that she almost brought me to tears several times during the film, especially her desperation when the man from District 11 is murdered and at the end, when she is aboard the ship and launches herself at Haymitch, screaming and vicious. All the other characters are just as well casted – especially Woody Harrelson for the drunk, gruff, angry and loyal Haymitch Abernathy. I also love the new characters that are introduced in this film, such as Finnick Odair and Johanna Mason.

The whole film is beautiful, moving, dramatic and an amazing cinematic spectacle.

The Maze Runner by James Dashner

I’m currently on a bit of a dystopia binge, and after devouring Veronica Roth’s ‘Divergent’ trilogy I decided to try ‘The Maze Runner’ by James Dashner. The blurb sounded really intriguing – the story begins with Thomas, a teenager who has no memory of his life before he is deposited inside a huge concrete maze with a group of other amnesiac boys. With no idea of who they are or who put them here, these boys have spent the last 2 years surviving in this maze, aswell as trying to find a way out. As if this isn’t enough of a bombshell, the day after Thomas arrives a girl is placed into the maze for the first time ever, and Thomas thinks he knows her.

This story reveals the big picture slowly and teasingly, leaving you on tender-hooks as you follow this ‘Lord of the Flies’ style tale of survival in a world that makes no sense at all.

The series continues with two other books: ‘The Scorch Trials’ and ‘The Death Cure’.

Although I think the idea of this story is interesting and completely original, it wasn’t quite what I expected. Infact, it is probably the very basis of the story that was the problem – the amnesia that all the characters are crippled with. Although an exciting literary technique, it makes it very difficult to feel connected to the characters. As a reader, you get no back story, no sense of the kind of person that Thomas is. For the majority of the book he is an extremely passive character: he is the eyes through which the reader views everything in the maze, but he doesn’t seem to show many strong emotions or sense of personality to engage the reader. He is a blank slate. Which means that the reader must decide for themselves over time whether Thomas is kind, funny, boring, strong, intelligent or cruel. His sense of character is built up slowly, making the connection between reader and protagonist delayed and weak.

Minho is the only character is this book that I felt had a particularly strong personality, as most of the others blended together somewhat into a vague picture of a confused and scared boy. Minho is strong, stubborn and fierce. He is engaging.

I also felt that the basis of this story – the dystopian world in which these boys live – was a little far-fetched. And that’s normally fine; I love dystopian novels with wild and unimaginable versions of our world, as long as the reasoning behind these civilizations is somewhat sound. It has to be slightly believable (even if we have to turn our heads and squint to picture it) in order for it to be a good read. And although ‘The Maze Runner’ is thrilling and fun and exciting, it is not believable.

But this may not bother other readers. It’s only for dystopia that I like my stories to be slightly believable, so I can imagine what I would do and who I would be in such a place. For me, horror stories/thrillers/fantasy novels can be as wildly unimaginable as they like – that’s the fun of them! – so maybe for others, a smidge of reality isn’t really necessary to enjoy a dystopian novel. And besides all of that, ‘The Maze Runner’ is definitely an enjoyable novel.

This book is also being turned into a film, with Kaya Scodelario (Effy from Skins!) playing Teresa, so it should be fantastic.

Divergent by Veronica Roth

Wow. This is without a doubt one of the best books I have read this year, a thoroughly thrilling reading experience. I have always loved dystopian novels, for example Scott Westerfeld’s ‘Uglies’ series was one of my favourite books growing up. But with the exception of Kazuo Ishiguro’s ‘Never Let Me Go’ – one of the most insightful novels I have ever read – I haven’t gotten my hands on any dystopia in a long while. But after reading ‘The Hunger Games’ trilogy last year, and the release of the incredible second film, I decided to indulge in my previous love for dystopia. And Divergent definitely didn’t disappoint.

Divergent is set in the city that was once called Chicago, which is now divided into five different sections – Amity, Erudite, Abnegation, Dauntless and Candor. I found the theory behind this novel so interesting: that people be divided into ‘factions’ in which they live and work, based upon arguably the most vital aspects of our humanity – bravery, honesty, intelligence, selflessness and peace. When all citizens reach the age of 16, they are tested to see which faction they are made for, then they choose where to live the rest of their lives. Beatrice has spent her whole life in Abnegation, but feels she does not possess the selflessness needed to continue this life. Worried about letting down her parents and her brother Caleb, the choosing ceremony weighs heavily on her mind. But then her test reveals something almost unheard of – she is not made for one single faction, but for three. She is Divergent. Beatrice then makes a choice that will come to define her, as she must learn in training to forget everything she has been taught in the last 16 years, and become who she really is.

The violence, murder and suicide which are prominent themes in this book make Divergent a novel aimed at an older teen audience.

I loved the idea of this book – creating a society made of qualities that together make a well-rounded, heroic person, but individually have the potential for such brutality, cruelty and darkness. I found these books moving, full of action and suspense and inspiring in the way they portray the decisions we all have to make about who we are, and how these decisions affect the people we become.  I also found myself wondering throughout what attributes I valued most in life, and which faction I would belong to. Divergent is thrilling, insightful, and beautifully written. It reminds me of the emotional pull I felt towards my childhood dystopian favourites; that yearning to experience another version of our world, to have adventures and the chance to be truly brave.