What Now?

Ok there's no way to start this without a HUGE spoiler so if you haven't read delirium and you want to, stop reading right now.

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So Lauren Oliver's pandemonium picks up right where delirium left off.  Lena and Alex made a desperate attempt to flee to the wilds before Lena has her "cure." But because they had to leave early they can't sneak out as planned and Alex ends up getting shot and Lena climbs over the wall alone. (I told you there would be a spoiler)

So what now?  Lena pictured a life with Alex, they were supposed to escape together, start a new life, together.  But instead Lena's last memory of Alex is him bleeding to death on the other side of the wall.  Lena doesn't know her way around the wilds.  She doesn't know how to survive.  She meant to come with a partner, a guide, her love.  But now, she is all alone.  So what now?

Lena must rebuild herself.  The old Lena is dead.  This new Lena is tough.  The new Lena is brave. The new Lena somehow makes her way to a camp of "invalids" who take her in and teach her how to survive in the wilds.   The new Lena gets a scar to mimic the scar of those who are cured.  The new Lena moves into a new town of "cureds" with a new identity as one who has been cured.  The new Lena is part of the resistance.

But can the new Lena love again?  I mean that is the whole point, isn't it?  The whole point of going to the wilds was for love.  Lena now knows without a doubt that when there is love there is also pain. Is love worth risking more pain?

Moving on...that's kids stuff.  

PS Oliver organizes this book by jumping between the "then" and "now."  She opens with Lena's new life and then as the book progresses we learn more and more about how she got there.