In this sequel to her heart-wrenching Delirium, Lauren Oliver (Before I Fall) will leave readers applauding the daring routes Lena travels in a dystopian, loveless America.
Here Lena leaves her old self "behind a wall of smoke and flame," having escaped from Portland, Maine, where she saw Alex--the boy who "infected" her with amor deliria nervosa, love--shot down at the border. Reeling with grief, Lena is reborn in the unregulated territory of the Wilds. Raven, a leader of the rebellion against the DFA (Deliria-Free America), rescues Lena and enlists her in their cause. Lena agrees, in honor of Alex's memory ("He believed in the resistance, and now I will believe in it for him").
Raven teaches Lena to forget the past ("There is no before. There is only now, and what comes next"), and prepares her to infiltrate the DFA in order to observe 18-year-old Julian Fineman, son of the DFA's founder. Julian has not undergone the cure because of previous surgeries to correct a recurring brain tumor. But he is daring to "excise the sickness" of love, even if it kills him. On Julian's cure day, chaos ensues in Times Square, Lena and Julian end up imprisoned together, and they form a bond.
Pandemonium alternates between "Then" and "Now" chapters, the action spaced six months apart. Oliver cuts back and forth seamlessly, and creates a mystery around Raven's past and the reason she's assigned Lena to Julian. The tension and twists leading up to the end of this volume will certainly build anticipation for the trilogy's finale. --Adam Silvera, assistant coordinator, Books of Wonder, New York