Review: Requiem (Delirium #3) by Lauren Oliver

Title: Requiem
Author: Lauren Oliver
Series: Delirium
Book #: 3
Pages: 391
Reading Level: YA
Book Rating: 
Goodreads Rating: 3.85
Published: March 5th, 2013

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.

Taschima's POV:

...there is another book right?

The DELIRIUM series cannot end this way, so vague and unfinished.

Disappointed doesn't begin to cover how I feel.

The beginning was slow, and the ending was rushed, sooo rushed... and unclear, and incomplete, and preachy, and not at all what I was expecting. It felt short, the whole book did.

So she went back to the wilds and lived crappily ever after? Is that what I am getting?

Felt like a bridge between books, nothing was really solved, and we were left with more questions than answers. While Pandemonium was a revelation, Requiem was the book that fell short. Guess it was too much to hope Requiem would be just as good. We get NO answers. At the end it's like nothing is resolved, not even the love triangle (that no one believed in the first place anyways).

I was already suspecting this was going to happen, when I reached the middle of the book (and a little after) and nothing significant had yet happened. We got a confrontation in the romance department (ONE! And not even after they meet face to face for the first time, woah was I pissed!), true, but other than that? Nada!!

This book was definitely dissapointing. We still get beautiful writing, and it was GREAT to get to see the characters we love again, but it felt like a bridge book. No resolution, no ENDING. Just, all left in the air...

The rest of this review shall be full of spoilers, so read if you must, I have a lot of talking to do about specific parts that pissed.me.off.

HIGHLIGHT space below for Spoilers.

By the end there she is with a child (Grace), reconciles with Alex (barely?) yet hasn't broken up with Julian even though she finally realized she will never love him as much as she loves Alex (DUH!)

Their reconciliation (Alex and Lena) wasn't even that romantic or sweet. It was business like. Oh yeah I love you, you love me, let's not even make eye contact as we are saying this in THE MIDDLE OF A FUCKING ATTACK.

Then Lena goes off, stares at Julian's bare chest on her way to a half pummeled wall (guess old habits die hard?) WITH A CHILD to help tear it down some more? WHAT THE HELL IS SHE GOING TO DO? ATTACK THE WALL WITH HER FISTS? SHE AIN'T FUCKING MADE OF STEEL! And the most ridiculous thing of all is the last paragraph where Lauren Oliver tries to tie everything with words of wisdom that quite frankly fell flat.

After everything we went through Delirium and Pandemonium do you really think a half assed paragraph was going to make me HAPPY? I am furious! The last paragraph could be summarized with the song by Avril Lavigne titled "Keep Holding on". Does this mean we get a sequel? To hold on for a brighter tomorrow in which the ending to one of my favorite series isn't this? I damn hope so.

And I haven't even started talking about Hana's grand finale.

She finds out there is a bomb at the house she is to live with her fucking psycho jerk of a husband and she just goes off the backdoor, never looking back. Did the husband explode? WHO KNOWS! Did Hana ever find Lena again? No fucking clue. What is she going to do now? Hell, you got me there!

And the way she does a complete 180 there at the end on the way she treats Lena and stuff after everything we have read from her POV? Nope, don't believe it. She treats Lena like she barely knows her even though she has been agonizing about her in every other page we read. Dumbfounding!

Is Hana's husband (the creepy psycho new mayor that quite possibly killed his father) even dead? No one knows! I didn't read about an explosion, how about you?

Oh and why doesn't Lena break up with Julian? My personal opinion is that Lauren Oliver dug herself a deep hole she doesn't want to get herself out of. Julian only joined the resistance because of Lena, only to find out this girl has been stringing him along this whole time?
Fuck, if she series were to continue Julian could become the ultimate super villain! He is smart, hot, from a well respected family, and has a bone to pick with love. Ultimate Super Villain. Couldn't blame the guy.

And Alex? Don't make me talk about him now, MY Alex died in Delirium. This new ball of hatred is not Alex. He is just not the guy any of us fell in love with, and you know why? BECAUSE HE DOESN'T GET ENOUGH PAGE TIME. If Hana could tell her story by GODS let Alex tell his side! All we get is confused old Lena who doesn't know her ass from her elbows.

I am sure our Alex never return because he never got a chance. So much time was put into veering us into the wrong conclusion of who was going to win Lena's heart that we didn't have enough reading space to fall in love with Alex all over again, hell we didn't even have time to reconnect!

Lena and her mother reunite. That was done right, I believe it. Lena is a big ball of feels, she would have forgiven her mother that easily. She never spoke top her about Alex though, in the entire book. You would think that small part of her live (the entire first book right?) would come up in conversation.

Coral, we hate her, we love her... I kind of liked her at the end. She seemed cool when not looked through Lena's eyes.

The war was never resolved. They won a battle (I think? They were definitely halfway through when the book ended...) in Portland, but they definitely didn't win any wars!

OH and after reading Raven's story, to find out she was pregnant (something that was NEVER referred to or addressed in Requiem) and she just DIES? Not even fighting or like the leader she is, she is climbing up some stairs, pokes her head out, and gets shot. Tack comes to console her, and we never read about them two again. Was the shot fatal? Maybe! Was she still pregnant by then? I don't know? Did Tack know? etc etc, nothing was addressed and everything was left up in the air.