Book Review: Requiem by Lauren Oliver

Title: Requiem
Author: Lauren Oliver (web | twitter)
Series: Delirium #3
Genre: Dystopian YA
Amazon | Goodreads
Publisher: Harper Collins Children’s
Release date: March 5, 2013
Source: Borrowed

Summary: 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.

Oh, friends. How to tell you about my thoughts on REQUIEM by Lauren Oliver. This is actually a hard review to write. Not because I can’t think of things to say or because I don’t have any feelings about it. OPPOSITE. I have thoughts and feelings about REQUIEM. I just wish that they were different. I WANTED them to be different. I enjoy Lauren Oliver‘s books. Like lots of people, REQUIEM was a book that I both anticipated greatly and feared like whoa because I was afraid of what heart-wrenching things would be in store for Lena and Alex and Julian. So here it is, in a nutshell: ARGH WTF MEH. That would be my review of REQUIEM in a few words/expressions. I was disappointed. I don’t think there’s a worse way for a series to go out than this one did, and I mean that almost literally–my biggest issue here was the ending. WAAH!!

So REQUIEM is basically two stories that come together at the end: Lena’s journey with the Resistance, which now encompasses Alex and Julian; and her friend Hana, who returns to the main storyline as a cured young girl engaged to the new mayor of Portland. The Resistance is trying to fight against the government, who have infiltrated both the Wilds and the Resistance itself. Yup. We’ve got traitors, friends. Meanwhile, Lena is dealing with the close proximity and blatant coldness of Alex, and the growing feelings and warmth of Julian. Meanwhile, Hana is living in Portland. She’s been cured and is engaged to the new mayor, who’s kind of a dirtbag. Their stories converge at the end when the Resistance comes to Portland and then…well, I have no idea. Neither will you. ARGH!

Here’s my feelings about this whole series–because I feel like you have to judge the series as a whole, now that it’s finished. DELIRIUM = hands down, the best of the three. No contest. One of my worst ugly cries ever. PANDEMONIUM = very good, but not as good as DELIRIUM. I missed Alex but eventually Julian grew on me. REQUIEM = worst of the three, and that makes me sad and a touch angry. I will most certainly back that up though, because I know that’s a really strong thing to say. But truthfully, I couldn’t be more honest about my feelings right now, and I’ve had more than a month to mull everything over. My initial feelings haven’t changed.

Before I get going on what bummed me out about REQUIEM by Lauren Oliver, let me just say that I actually flew through this book. I have been invested in Lena and Alex and Julian the whole time, and that didn’t change here. I was captured by their daily lives with the Resistance, and the way there was no safe place for them. They lived in constant danger. People close to them die, and I was sad. People they trust betray them, and I was angry. Lauren Oliver, as always, knows how to play with our hearts, and she did a good job here. Alex is mostly a big jerk to Lena, and he kind of flirts with another girl for most of the book. But I totally felt that he had MORE FEELS than he was letting on. And Julian is likable as before, but I got a distinct impression that Lena was trying to force herself to feel for him what he feels for her, and Julian deserves better than that.

I also really enjoyed getting to see Hana again, which was a surprise to me when I read REQUIEM. I love that Lauren Oliver puts us in the head and the life of a cured person. We see Hana’s struggles with her lovelessness, and how she maybe still has something like feelings of love hidden within herself. By the time the end of REQUIEM comes along, I wasn’t very sure WHY we got to see things from Hana’s perspective–her story seems kind of superfluous–aside from the simple reason of getting a perspective of a cured person. Still, all in all, I enjoyed reading about her, and she plays a role in the end.

Now. The end. UGH GUYS. I don’t even know how to begin, so perhaps I should just begin with frankness: I yelled out loud when I read the last page. Because I was pissed and frustrated. I might have use swear words. I might have also said the words “cop out.” Perhaps my feelings have cooled slightly since, but this is still the most disappointing part of REQUIEM, and it colors my opinion of this whole book. There’s no resolution to anything. I can’t even tell you all of the things that are up in the air by the time the last paragraph comes around. Lauren Oliver, as usual, writes beautifully. But DANG LADY, we could’ve used a few more words! I know that ending things the way she does was partly intentional, but it felt…UGH. I didn’t like it.

I hope you guys don’t take this as me being a person who can’t appreciate an open ending. Not true. I have absolutely no problems with them, if they’re done well. I didn’t think this one was. Like, at all. This makes me so unbelievably sad. Because this series started with an INSANE amount of promise and feels and emotions! The ending of REQUIEM is almost the equivalent of a book ending with all the characters getting in a car accident and you have no idea who lives or dies or what happens at all. It’s like the end of the Sopranos. EVERYONE here is literally in the middle of A THING, and then–nothing. It’s beyond frustrating.

You know what stinks the most about this, too? If I’m being honest when I make recommendations of this series, I’d have to say that it starts out AWESOME and ends with a huge, disappointing whimper. SUCH a bummer. UGH, friends. ALL THE UGHS.

I do hope that you read REQUIEM by Lauren Oliver, friends, and I hope so much that you don’t have the reaction to it that I did, because I enjoyed this series…until it ended. I remain a huge fan of Lauren Oliver for sure, though, and I’ll be looking forward to what she’s got coming next. But until then, I’ve got a meh taste in my mouth.

Check out some other reviews of Requiem by Lauren Oliver

Gaby @ Queen Ella Bee Reads: “…at the end of book 2 I was all: HERE COMES THE TENSION. HERE IT COMES, I AM READY. And then book 3 was like: NONE FOR YOU, GABY.”

Candice @ The Grown Up YA: “Ugh, I can’t even put into words how pissed off I am about this book and its ending. It wasn’t even an ending. It was a total cop out non-ending.”

April @ Good Books and Good Wine: “Some people loved the ending but not me. I thought it was whack.”