Except for Andy, everything about this book was a disappointment and guess what? Andy dies (spoiler).
I was super excited to get to read this book after the wild ride that Fragment took me on. I was curious about how the Hendros were adapting to life among humans and how the humans who survived Hender’s Island were coping with the horrors they went through there.
Sadly, after all they went through in Fragment, with the way they were written in the sequel, I actually ended up disliking Geoffrey and Nell! It was always “wifey” this and “husby” that… Yes, I triple checked, she calls him “husby” not “hubby.”
Nell, a brilliant scientist, runs around half naked during what is supposed to be a life threatening situation because she “forgot” to wear a bra and THEN has to disrobe AGAIN later! What the hell?!?!!!? And Geoffrey isn’t much better… he was one of the most interesting characters in Fragment, smart and funny and really likeable! But in Pandemonium, he was reduced to mindless panic and idiotic gushing over Nell like a slobbering sycophant rather than a loving husband.
I hated Sasha with a passion. If she’d been written as a teenager, her behavior would have been believable, but a ten year old pulling what she did out of her hat all throughout Pandemonium? Yeah, no.
The thing I was looking forward to the most was seeing what had happened to Hender and Andy and the other Hendros. These moments were few and far between, and felt as if they’d just been thrown on the page as an afterthought.
The villains (both human and hendro) were utterly forgettable and felt like caricatures of old-times bad guys, swirling their mustaches and clasping their hands in glee.
All in all, Pandemonium is just a bad book. If I could give negative stars, this would get -7 ⭐️’s.
An utter disappointment after the brilliance of Fragment, it will be a long time before I trust Warren Fahy enough to pick up another of his books.
Meandering Michelle 