Publication Date: March 5, 2013
Publisher: HarperCollins Children's Books
Source: Book Purchased by Reviewer
Buy it at: Amazon, Barnes and Noble, IndieBound
My rating: 4 out of 5 stars
Summary (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.
This book… ::Sigh::… THIS BOOK! It’s definitely been a
roller coaster ride of emotions for me…to say the LEAST! After my dear friend
Jenn recommended the first book in the series, Delirium, I was captured by its powerful story and plot…hook, line
and sinker!
The second book, Pandemonium,
was just as emotional as the first and last books, but had me feeling a sense
of happiness throughout the book because of all that had unfolded. Then the end
throws us for the shocker and that’s where we begin with this book.
I’ve been thinking about how this series could end and I have
to say is…I was NOT impressed. I had several scenarios unfolding in my head and
Lauren Oliver did not use ANY of them. I mean, hello?! I worked hard on this
ending,…she should have too! Right?!
Oliver took this story and took it on a totally different
level. And that’s not to say that the writing wasn’t good, because it was! And the
story wasn’t bad…it just was so far off from what I had hoped it would be that
it left me yearning for more. The ending was left so open and incomplete that I
feel like I never got the closure I needed. Whether I approved of Lena’s
decision in boyfriends it didn’t matter. I just needed that closure and Oliver
highly disappointed me on this level. You can’t have a story centering on the
idea that love is a disease and detailing all of the struggles that occur from
the people who support the cure and people who didn’t support the cure, then completely
ignore the fact that behind all the fighting and death and war there was a real
love story that never had a happy ending. I just can’t deal with that…I.JUST.CAN’T!
Then, of all other things to leave unfinished, we never know
what happens to Hana. After all that happened with the betrayal, the bomb, her horrible husband, and the final
confrontation between her and Lena, we never even get to see THEIR happy
ending.
And finally, Raven, that truly broke my heart. After all
Raven has done for Lena and the relationship that unfolded between the two of
them. Seeing the kind of strong, brave person that Raven was, Oliver betrayed
her character by giving her the ending that she did. Raven definitely didn’t deserve
that. She was too strong a person to go down the way she did. Not cool Lauren
Oliver…NOT.COOL!
So, though this is definitely one of my favorite series
EVER. I have to say that this particular book saddens me in a way that you will
never understand.
