Initial Impressions 8/18/15: Actual rating 3.5 - 3.75 stars but not quite four. I'll probably round down to three since four stars are ones I'd usually recommend and put in someone's hands and I'm still iffy on this one. 
 PANIC was interesting but it really wasn't quite what I thought it would be. I enjoyed it for the most part but I thought it was going to be a lot more thriller and less personal. I didn't mind the backstories of each character but I was hoping for more action and a constant string of events instead of spending more time fleshing out the characters in between challenges... But I guess this is Lauren Oliver so I should have expected more of that realistic fiction side to be there! 
 I liked the action but there were also a lot of things I wasn't too keen on. Not active turn-offs but more like I could take it or leave it (usually leave it). 
 Review as originally posted HERE on The Book Addict's Guide: It took me a while to finally pick up PANIC and when I did, I actually opted for the audio instead of the physical book that I'd had sitting on my shelves since March. Of last year. It wasn't even the book so much as that feeling where you find a favorite author and then things start to be... less magical. I absolutely loved DELIRIUM, didn't feel as strongly about PANDEMONIUM, and felt a little disappointed by REQUIEM. I recently read VANISHING GIRLS and was hoping to find that magic of DELIRIUM again but it still fell a little short for me, (I'm not a middle grade reader so I haven't read any of her MG works either) so naturally I was a bit on the fence about my enthusiasm for PANIC... and sadly I was right to hesitate. 
 PANIC wasn't a bad read for me but it didn't quite go the way that I had hoped. From the book's synopsis, I was under the impression that PANIC was mostly a thriller and yes, there were definitely some thrilling and action-packed events throughout the book, but I actually found myself bothered by how much the book delved into the personal lives of each character. I know, I know, that sounds absolutely ridiculous. Who doesn't want character development? Well, it's not that I didn't want it but the issues that each characters had and some of their current life situations ended up shifting the focus to really dig into personal backgrounds and the drama surrounding their current situations felt like it took away from the thrill of the game of Panic. I went into the book expecting so much thriller and less contemporary BUT I should have known that wouldn't be the case since every other Lauren Oliver book I've read digs very deeply into each character and presents the reader with some very serious issues. This was definitely a personal preference/expectation for me. 
 I did enjoy the concept of Panic. I loved the adventure and suspense that it added to the book overall and how each character really was pushed to their limits (and beyond) because of it. I was, however, a bit skeptical about the whole concept. The town is fairly small and although 12,000 people is still a lot, I feel like the cops should have been able to catch someone in the act of participating in Panic, especially when most of the entire senior class congregated to watch/join in and they visited the same spots from year to year. Some of the challenges also felt extremely intense. I guess that is the whole point of Panic but since I was already questioning things, I began to question those as well. 
 I was really all over the place character-wise. I didn't really feel strongly about anyone and was actively turned off by others. I wasn't a huge fan of Heather and I really didn't care for Natalie. I just didn't find myself connecting with them much at all. I started feeling like I was okay with things and then something popped up that really bothered me so I really ended up a bit disappointed overall. 
 I think I'm just really disappointed that this book still wasn't the Lauren Oliver magic that I was hoping it would be. I did finish and felt... all right with it but it felt like more of a disappointment than a book I enjoyed. It seems more like one of those cases where several personal preferences come into play because I have seen a lot of excellent reviews for PANIC but this one just didn't do it for me and I'm starting to feel less of a pull to read Lauren Oliver's books.