Featured Books of the Month

Iron Thorn book jacket

If you read Lauren Oliver’s Delirium (previously featured here), no doubt you’ve anxiously awaited the next title in this dystopian trilogy, Pandemonium. If you are waiting to get your hands on a copy, just let me say, you will not be disappointed.

Delirium set the stage, with Oliver developing the premise of a society in which love is labeled a disease, "amor deliria nervosa," ready to trigger a plague at any moment unless untreated. All citizens undergo a surgical “cure” in their teens, before they can become love sick. Lena fell in love with Alex just before her scheduled “procedure.” We were left wondering whether either she or Alex survived their escape into “the Wilds.”

Pandemonium finds Lena in the Wilds, near death and alone until she is rescued by a group of “invalids;” the name given the untreated who have escaped fenced cities, surviving by their wits in the wilderness. Throughout the book Lena grieves over her loss of Alex, as she learns to survive in the small commune of invalids lead by a feisty young woman named Raven. And yet, Pandemonium is a love story.

How can that be with Alex out of the picture? I’m not going to ruin the plot for you. Lauren Oliver has structured the story in alternating chapters; “Then” and “Now.” Perspective switches back and forth between Lena’s early escape, joining the small band of freedom fighters and learning survival, and the present. In the present Lena has re-crossed the border in order to infiltrate the DFA, an organization lead by a zealot and devoted to assuring that everyone is “cured” by receiving the procedure. Pandemonium is filled with adventure and suspense, twists and turns, unexpected alliances, and an ending that will leave you eagerly awaiting the conclusion of this excellent trilogy.

Dayna Lovell,

Youth Librarian

Fiction on the Dark Side:

Iron Thorn by Caitlin Kittredge

This Dark Endeavor by Kenneth Oppel

Young Adult Book Reviews

By Dayna, the Librarian

Kittredge, Caitlin. Iron Thorn. 2011. In an alternate 1950s, mechanically gifted fifteen-year-old Aoife Grayson must leave the totalitarian city of Lovecraft and venture into the world of magic to solve the mystery of her brother's disappearance and the mysteries surrounding her father and the Land of Thorn. Her family has a history of going mad at age sixteen, so Aoife is racing against time. This title falls in the Dystopian Fiction and Steampunk genres. It has a dark and suspenseful feel, throughout; creepy alleys, rogue characters, a highly controlled society, mysteries to solve and travel into another realm. It’s hard to ask for more, and hard to put down! And, there is a sequel scheduled to be published on February 14, 2012. Watch for The Nightmare Garden.

Oppel, Kenneth. This Dark Endeavor. 2011. A prequel to Mary Shelley's Frankenstein. The Frankenstein family has twin boys, Konrad and Victor. They are also raising a distant cousin, Elizabeth; a spunky, intelligent young woman who will not be limited by the conventions of the time. When his twin brother falls ill in the family's chateau in the independent republic of Geneva in the eighteenth century, sixteen-year-old Victor Frankenstein embarks on a dangerous and uncertain quest, accompanied by Elizabeth and friend, Henry to create the forbidden Elixir of Life described in an ancient text in the family's secret Biblioteka Obscura. This story is full of creepy suspense, with a smattering of romance as the twins find they are both in love with Elizabeth. This was a gripping tale. It left me wondering whether Elizabeth and Victor will get together, after all and if Kenneth Oppel will continue the story, leading all the way to the development of the Doctor Frankenstein we all know – and his monster.

Historical fiction/Gothic fiction.