A few books I’ve listened to lately:

Life, on the Line: A Chef’s Story of Chasing Greatness, Facing Death, and Redefining the Way We Eat by Grant Achatz, Nick Kokonas

My Rating: 4 out of 5 stars

Very enjoyable book about Achatz culinary journey and his struggle with cancer. I found the narration interesting and absorbing. I liked the dual POV with both Achatz and his business partner. I’m not very motivated to eat his food (4 hours of ultra fine dining is not my thing) but I found the mental process interesting. I like chef shows and although I didn’t know anything about this particular chef I was very pleased to have read it. I can easily recommend it. I honestly didn’t want it to end and looked forward to getting in the car to listen so that’s always a good thing.

Pandemonium (Delirium #2) by Lauren Oliver

My Rating: 3 out of 5 stars

A decent sequel to the first book – Delirium. It picks up almost exactly where the last book left off and there’s a lot of background information. The back and forth between past and present narration can be jarring and I didn’t always appreciate the technique. I think the book could have been structured in a traditional way with no less impact or understanding. I think it was trying to be cute and different without the need to be. Once again Lena can be exceptionally annoying. Her constant thoughts of “I knew I was wrong but I couldn’t help myself.” Apparently she can’t help a lot though she is pretty persistent in her irrational demands.

I mostly enjoyed this as a smooth book to listen to and one that was easy to zone out of without comprehension problems. I’ll admit, sometimes I became so annoyed with Lena it made me run faster.

Which brings me to:

Requiem (Delirium #3) by Lauren Oliver 

My Rating: 2 out of 5 stars

It’s finally over! Awesome! Requiem picks up, non-sensically, some time down the road from when Pandemonium stopped. The ending of the last book was a cliffhanger – le gasp Alex was back! – and now months have passed. It’s a shame the author chose to ignore that inherent and worthwhile drama and instead focused on mundane bickering for the majority of this book. Not much happens action-wise and Hana is given a narrative voice. I’m not sure why she’s included, other than to tell us about her role in Lena’s initial capture from Delirium. The story has numerous coincidences and unanswered questions. There are several ridiculous answers too – such as from Lena’s mom about why she never tried to find Lena and the answer was “I’m here now.” Except of course she wasn’t since she was headed off in another direction.

Additionally the story tries to preach some life lessons at the expense of the actual story. I don’t particularly want to be preached at to “tear down the walls” in both a metaphorical and physical sense. I get it. Love is dangerous and scary and worthwhile and everyone should choose their own path, no matter how painful. The message has been hammered into the reader far before now. This message being so important that there’s no resolution to the uprising at the end nor is there a resolution to the 3 book long love triangle between Lena, Julian, and Alex. Perhaps menage? Who seriously ends the book without any conclusions to the numerous plot points and doesn’t even resolve the main romantic dilemma?

Once again easy to read but the author should have known better. I feel like she was trying to be cute or different again and I’m annoyed I invested time in this series. I want an ending! This one honestly reads like it’s waiting for the final book to come. Can’t recommend it.