Book Review: Panic

TITLE: Panic
AUTHOR: Lauren Oliver
PUBLISHED: March 4rth, 2014
CATEGORY: YA
GENRE: Contemporary, Mystery?
PREMISE: Heather enters Panic, a local game of dares where the winner wins a lot of cash...
MY REVIEW: I honestly just don't know what to make of this book.
On one hand, it's a great character study. Oliver is great at getting into the heads of her characters and exploring why they do the things they do. She doesn't have everything be black and white in her books and I like that, which is why I keep reading despite some of the flaws she has as a writer.
Which brings me to the flaws of the book. Like most of Oliver's books, it's an intriguing idea. But it never feels fully formed. That was the problem in Delirium and that is the problem in Panic. There's also plot holes galore since I'm expected to believe that this takes place in our world when I just can't believe students would go along with a crazy game they're never going to enter and shell out one dollar a day. Especially students who don't have a lot of money. I don't care what "reminders" you use. People don't generally give money daily to things that they're not going to have any part in.
So once again, plausibility got into Oliver's way. Unlike Delirium however, it didn't work. Yes, I know finding a cure for love is more absurd then this, but Oliver made it work by having a great world set up. Here...not so much. It kind of makes the book hard to get into. At least I found this one hard to get into. I still want Oliver to stick around though. She has really interesting ideas. I just wish she'd work on plot execution because I think that is her ultimate downfall.
WHO SHOULD READ: Lauren Oliver fans
MY RATING: Three and a half out of Five I Don't Get Its