annabel

annabel
delirium series #2.5
lauren oliver
harper collins
published 2012

Lena Halloway's mother, Annabel, supposedly committed suicide when Lena was only six years old. That's the lie that Lena grew up believing, but the truth is very different. As a rebellious teenager, Annabel ran away from home and straight into the man she knew she was destined to marry. The world was different then—the regulations not as stringent, the cure only a decade old. Fast forward to the present, and Annabel is consigned to a dirty prison cell, where she nurtures her hope of escape and scratches one word over and over into the walls: Love.
But Annabel, like Lena, is a fighter. Through chapters that alternate between her past and present, Annabel reveals the story behind her failed cures, her marriage, the births of her children, her imprisonment, and, ultimately, her daring escape.

I generally don't write reviews on short stories or novellas because they're mostly just teasers without much to them, but Annabel was something I had been wanting without even knowing it.

Lena's mother has always been a ghost.  All we knew about her was that the cure didn't work on her and she killed herself because of it.  We find out later that she didn't commit suicide, but was imprisoned instead.  Later still we learn of yet another fate for Lena's mother.  And despite Lena's longing and curiosity we know very little of who Annabel really was.

This story attempts to bring Annabel closer to the surface for us and while it does give us a better glimpse of who she was it's hardly enough.  Annabel is a strong and rich character.  There is so much more to tell!  I think she would be well served with a book of her own, but I assume that because these are YA books we'll never really see that come to fruition.

We see Lena in her, although Annabel's rebellion is much more calculated.  Lena ran because she fell in love.  Annabel ran because she knew better.