Hana by Lauren Oliver Review

Hana by Lauren Oliver  
(Delirium, # 1.5)
Release Date: February 28, 2012
Publisher: Harper Collins; 63 pages

The summer before they're supposed to be cured of the ability to love, best friends Lena and Hana begin to drift apart. While Lena shies away from underground music and parties with boys, Hana jumps at her last chance to experience the forbidden. For her, the summer is full of wild music, dancing—and even her first kiss.

But on the surface, Hana must be a model of perfect behavior. She meets her approved match, Fred Hargrove, and glimpses the safe, comfortable life she’ll have with him once they marry. As the date for her cure draws ever closer, Hana desperately misses Lena, wonders how it feels to truly be in love, and is simultaneously terrified of rebelling and of falling into line.

In this digital story that will appeal to fans of Delirium and welcome new admirers to its world, readers will come to understand scenes from Delirium through Hana's perspective. Hana is a touching and revealing look at a life-changing and tumultuous summer.

Hana is a short novella that gives us a little bit of back story of Lena's best friend Hana.  The events of this novella take place during Delirium. Now since this is a novella, this review will be on the short side due to this novella being only five chapters.

I was really excited to read this novella because I felt that Hana was such an interesting character.  She gave me a sense of normalcy.  She acted very much like a teenager.  In Delirium, there is a time period in which Lena and Hana are having a bit of a row, and since the book is told from Lena's point of view Hana isn't in the story during this time.  In Hana, you get to see exactly what Hana was up to while her and Lena were having problems.  You get to dive into Hana's home life a bit as well.  Hana's upbringing was different than Lena's mostly because Hana's family is wealthy.  And Lena looked up to Hana very much, and was a bit envious of her.  But you see in this novella that the grass is definitely not greener on the other side.  After reading this, I felt like I understood Hana a little bit more.  And I definitely felt a bit of sympathy for her.

I actually read Pandemonium before I read Hana.  So it was a nice refresher on the events of Delirium.  And the ending of Hana really shocked me.  Even though it really shouldn't have because the clues were there the entire time.  But this shows what a strong author Lauren Oliver is, because I was definitely taken for surprise.