Review: Lauren Oliver's writing is fabulous!
Rating: 4 out of 5
Date: 04 9, 2013
I wish I had read this before I read Requiem. If I were to make a recommendation, I would probably say you should definitely read this in order. Then again, had I read it first I would have been really annoyed. And this is why, because there is stuff that happens in Raven's story that is not at all addressed in Requiem. And that is just so annoying to me. Why would Oliver put this stuff out there and then not do anything at all with it?If you have not read Pandemonium, there are spoilers below, so don't continue to read! You've been warned.In any case, this was a great glimpse into Raven. It is told in a now and then type of scenario but only broken up by paragraph separations. The before is Raven's life right after she escaped to the Wilds and a few years after as she forms relationships with the other Invalids. The now is when they get Lena after she saves Julian from sure death in the clinic.I liked reading about Raven as a younger girl, after she escaped into the Wilds and how she adapted. The story hit a nerve especially because there is information about Blue in it that tugs at your heart. I so missed her after she was gone. We also get a glimpse of Raven's relationship with Tack. We learn about their love and how they express it to each other, how they met and how their love grew.As always, I just love Oliver's writing. She just has such a way with descriptions and words it's impossible not to get pulled into her stories.Without telling spoilers, I will say that things are revealed in this novella that are never again addressed in Requiem. As I said above, no matter when I would have read this it would have bothered me. Oliver drops a big bomb about Raven, but you never ever see it in Requiem. Why she put it out there when she wasn't ever going to address or have it come up at all is beyond me.So, I will give this 4/5 stars because the writing is great and I love Raven's character, despite my annoyance by knowing things are left in the wind in the next book. I was jaded by having read the third book of this series before this novella and I can't get that out of my mind.