Review: Requiem by Lauren Oliver

Requiem

Author: Lauren Oliver
Series: Delirium, Book Three
Publisher: Harper
Genre: Young Adult Dystopian
Format: Hardcover, 391 pages
Release Date: March 5, 2013
Source:  Personal Library, Bought

Synopsis from Goodreads:

They have tried to squeeze us out, to stamp us into the past.

But we are still here.

And there are more of us every day.

Now an active member of the resistance, Lena has been transformed. The nascent rebellion that was under way in Pandemonium has ignited into an all-out revolution in Requiem, and Lena is at the center of the fight.

After rescuing Julian from a death sentence, Lena and her friends fled to the Wilds. But the Wilds are no longer a safe haven—pockets of rebellion have opened throughout the country, and the government cannot deny the existence of Invalids. Regulators now infiltrate the borderlands to stamp out the rebels, and as Lena navigates the increasingly dangerous terrain, her best friend, Hana, lives a safe, loveless life in Portland as the fiancée of the young mayor.

Maybe we are driven crazy by our feelings.

Maybe love is a disease, and we would be better off without it.

But we have chosen a different road.

And in the end, that is the point of escaping the cure: We are free to choose.

We are even free to choose the wrong thing.

Requiem is told from both Lena’s and Hana’s points of view. The two girls live side by side in a world that divides them until, at last, their stories converge.

My Review:

This was a thrilling finale to the Delirium series. There was so much action packed into this book as well as crazy plot twists that kept me on the edge of my seat the entire time I was reading. I read most of this book on a plane and my seatmate glanced over at me after the flight and commented on the fact that I read 300 pages in less than three hours. I just smiled at him and told him how much I love to read.

The first two books in this series are told completely from Lena’s perspective, but in this book, Lauren Oliver switches between Lena’s and Hana’s perspectives. I found this really interesting and enjoyable. Like I said in my review of Pandemonium, I missed Hana in that book so was thrilled that we not only got to see what was going on in her life, but actually to get to see what is going on from her perspective. Hana really struggles in this book. Even though she is cured now, she still feels bad about what happened to Lena and wonders what happened to her. Hana is getting ready to marry the mayor, Fred Hargrove, who is definitely a sociopath, super scary. She is going through the motions that she is supposed to, but on the inside is trying to figure out why she still thinks of Lena and why she can’t seem to let her go.

Lena is completely torn in two during this book. After finally moving on from Alex and allowing someone else into her heart, Julian, she discovers that Alex is not dead. Of course, she never stopped loving him and throughout the book she is trying to sort out her feelings for them both.

Alex, on the other hand, is a royal jerk when he finds Lena again. I wanted to punch him the entire book, but I never stopped rooting for him. I still love Alex and wanted both of them to just admit that they still loved each other and get on with their lives.

We see the Resistance finally move as one in this book with one major coordinated strike against the government. As the chaos is going on, Lena realizes that they are fighting for freedom, even if freedom is a scary field of unknowns and heartache. They are fighting for the right to choose, even if that means they choose wrong. There is a scene at the end that I won’t go into detail on, but is just the most beautifully painted scene in the world. There was something just enthralling about the way Oliver depicts it. When you read it, you will know what I’m talking about.

Let’s talk about what I didn’t like. Only one thing, really. The end. I hated how Lauren Oliver ended this. I just felt like she left it so open with so many unanswered questions. I suppose she was doing that so the reader can draw their own conclusions, and in some books, I think that works, but I just didn’t like it here. I wanted to know what happened to the key characters and we just don’t find out. It just ends and I was flipping through the final pages wondering if I missed something, praying that I missed something, but I didn’t and now I suppose I will wonder forever what these characters ended up doing. Boo.

Overall, the final book in the trilogy was really good. The action really picks up in this book which I really enjoyed and we see a beautiful picture unfold where the citizens of America take back their right to choose. Love is gained and lost which is really what the whole premise of the story is about. Lauren Oliver shows us both how amazing love can be and how incredibly painful it can be. But a world without love is like a world without the sun, one not worth living in at all. Only complaint about this one was the ending, but for the first 375 pages I could not tear my eyes away and loved everything about the words leaping off the pages in front of me. There was talk of a TV show being made based on the series by FOX, but unfortunately it did not get picked up. I would have loved to see that. I guess if I want to get lost in this world again I will just have to re-read the books. Happy reading all! 

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