Review: Panic by Lauren Oliver

Title: Panic
Author: Lauren Oliver
Series: Stand Alone
Published By: Harper Collins (March 4, 2014)
Source: ARC Copy Provided by the Author (in exchange for an honest review)
Genre: YA
My Rating: 3.5 Stars!

Book Description:
Panic began as so many things do in Carp, a dead-end town of 12,000 people in the middle of nowhere: because it was summer, and there was nothing else to do.

Heather never thought she would compete in Panic, a legendary game played by graduating seniors, where the stakes are high and the payoff is even higher. She’d never thought of herself as fearless, the kind of person who would fight to stand out. But when she finds something, and someone, to fight for, she will discover that she is braver than she ever thought.

Dodge has never been afraid of Panic. His secret will fuel him, and get him all the way through the game, he’s sure of it. But what he doesn't know is that he’s not the only one with a secret. Everyone has something to play for.

For Heather and Dodge, the game will bring new alliances, unexpected revelations, and the possibility of first love for each of them—and the knowledge that sometimes the very things we fear are those we need the most.

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I have been a fan of Oliver's ever since reading her Delirium series. I just love her writing and the way she makes me care about her characters so, of course, when I saw her new novel I just had to pick it up. I was pretty excited to read something else from her and, I admit, my expectations were pretty high.

I sometimes hate it when I have high expectations, especially when I am expecting one thing and get something else entirely. 

Don't get me wrong this wasn't a bad read, not at all, just not the read I thought I was getting. What did I think I was getting? Something more, horrific, with more danger, more horror, maybe even something more along the lines of her Delirium series and a dystopian even.

Either way, this turned out to be quite the unique read however you spin it.

Maybe not as fantastic as the synopsis made it out to be and even a little bizarre at times but definitely something you need to experience for yourself. 

Carp is a small town with a small population. Where everyone knows everybody, everyone has a secret and everyone wants to get out. A town riddled with poverty, hardship and even meanness. 

A town where Panic is the only chance some of them have at escape and for some, even revenge. 

A town that is very much not what it seems and no one is who they really thought they were.

Hmm, honestly, I read this book a few months back and never was able to write a review for it. Why? Because I felt like I really needed to sit back and process all that I had read and felt while reading it. This has an almost darker, sadder feel to it that is really hard to describe. No one in the town is truly happy. In fact it feels like a heaviness settles over you when you first open the pages. 

A town where no one is happy with their life, their situations or with each other but all of the young people there have one thing is common, they want escape.  To go somewhere better, to be someone else, to live a life other than the one they are in. To have a chance and to have hope. 

It was a different read. An unexpected read but still a good read with all the writing I love from Oliver, just a very different feel and tone to it.

I don't really know what else to say about it other than if you read it, be prepared to experience something you probably haven't before from her writing, world and characters. 

It won't be bad (just, here I use that word again) different. 

*All thoughts and opinions are my own and were not influenced by the author or publisher. I was not compensated for this review.*