My Never Ending List

Welcome to Panic.  The game is what seniors in the little town of Carp do for entertainment and if they win, they walk away with a sizable amount of cash.   It’s a competition that has been played every year and there are the players and the spectators.  It’s the excitement of playing the game and holding the dream in your head of what you would do with the cash once you hold it in your hands. Whether you actually fulfill your dream is another story but the possibility is always there.  The first challenge always has the highest number of players and as the challenges continue the obstacles become harder and take the most out of the players.  It might be skill, it might be luck and it might be nerves of steel that take you to the end, you just never can tell.  In Panic, some of the players form an alliance with each other hoping that this bond will help them in the end.  It’s Panic; it’s a game, so you never know what’s going to be thrown out at you so you hope these alliances stick around.  The variety of the games and the situations the characters have to endure are creative, adventurous and downright captivating.

I love Lauren Oliver and was so excited to get my hands on this book.  I tore through this book while sitting beside the pool on vacation grabbing myself a sunburn as I couldn’t put the book down.   Sitting beside my husband, I was giving him a play-by-play of all the action taking place and the “Oh” moments as they were going down. Lucky for him, now he doesn’t have to read it as he knows the book by heart.  Everyone had their own motives for wanting to win Panic and I think that was one of the reasons that Panic was so popular among the seniors and why many attempted it.  Whether it was the fame, the cash, their dreams or for many other reasons, it gave seniors in the town of Gap a boost that they needed after graduation.  For others, it provided entertainment.  As I got to know the characters, there were a few I wanted to win the prize and when the numbers started to dwindle, I was getting nervous.  Besides the drama of the challenges, you had the stories of the characters which pushed you further into the story.  Another great work of art by Lauren.