REVIEW: Pandaemonium by Ben Macallan

Pandaemonium by Ben Macallan
My rating: 1 of 5 stars

I didn’t care for book 1, but at least it was interesting enough. Book 2, Pandaemonium, was downright horrible. The book was truly its namesake, full of wild confusion.

The book started out fine, picking up immediately where book 1 ended. This time around, however, the story was told from Desi’s viewpoint instead of Jordan’s. I liked Desi and thought she was a good kickass heroine in book 1, but I came to like Jordan a lot at the end of book 1 so I was disappointed that book 2 didn’t continue from his viewpoint. But hey, it was Desi. Kickass heroine. I expected my disappointment to quickly fade. I could not have been more wrong. Things went downhill — fast.

Desi was on the run because bad guys were after her. It was the same thing ALL OVER AGAIN from book 1 except book 2 had her teaming up with her ex-boyfriend Jacey instead of Jordan. I quickly tired of the story. I thought Jordan’s narration in book 1 was long-winded, but Desi’s narration in book 2 was worse. Way WORSE. Her narration was a stream of consciousness, which I abhor. It didn’t take but a New York minute for Desi to turn from one of my favorite characters of the series to one of my least favorite.

Although things were happening, the plot progressed very little. Very little made sense, either. Characters just seemed to do stuff for no rhyme or reason. Many times I would be thinking, “What the fuck are these characters trying to accomplish?” Around a quarter of the book, I skimmed because I couldn’t endure the shitty reading any longer. I couldn’t believe how far in the book it took for Desi to learn who were the bad guys that were after her. I couldn’t believe how much time Desi spent thinking about her romantic drama crap with Jacey and Jordan towards the end when they were about to confront the bad guys. Woman, have some priorities!

Only at the end did I finally stop skimming, and what happened there confirmed my decision to skim as a smart one. Not much was resolved, especially not the love triangle. Though the bad guys were finally dealt with, it was lackluster and not worth reading the entire book to get to there. It was definitely not worth reading the entire series either. Desi’s character growth, the kind that should have started in the beginning of book 2 if not all the way back in the middle of book 1, finally started in the last chapter... of book 2, the end of the series. What a PISSER, and here I thought book 1’s ending was a pisser. I didn’t realize the book 2 was trying to outdo itself in angering me.

Conclusion

I rate Pandaemonium 1-star for I didn’t like it. At All. Stories should be as long as needed, but this one had absolutely no reason being dragged out as a duology. This one was one of those cases where the editor or the publisher should have insisted the story to be a standalone and have the book 1 and 2 just be ONE book.

I do not recommend this series. It’s a waste of time.

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