ByMarlida

REQUIEM
BY LAUREN OLIVER
PUBLISHED: 2013
AVERAGE RATING: 3.75
391 PAGES
★★☆☆☆

After reading Pandemonium, the book before Requiem, I was kind of obsessed with finding out how it ended. (Which was pretty much the only reason I continued reading this book.)

Here’s my sort of recap for the trilogy, and what I really thought about Requiem, the last book in the series.
I started reading Delirium because I’d wanted to read it for such a long time. Since I’d already bought the books, I thought; why not just read them? So I read the books + the short stories.
Annabel was exciting, and it was kind of the reason why I thought; okay, I’m going to read the rest of the books.

Delirium was okay, I didn’t get super excited about it, because, well, it was not enough action for me, not enough revealings and stuff like that. So it was pretty much boring until well, Alex “died”. What I did like was the changing of Lena, the way she went from being like the perfect citizen till a Invalid and a sympathizer.

Hana was boring, all though I had been wanting to know more about her as a character, I didn’t get to know much. In the book, the author pretty much repeated everything that happened in Delirium, just from Hana’s perspective. And Hana was my favorite character, until; well, she revealed that Hana was the reason Alex “died”.

Pandemonium was the best book, because we were introduced to a new favorite character; Julian. Who eventually became Lena’s boyfriend or something, even though she couldn’t let go of Alex. It’s also exciting because we suddenly realize that Lena’s mother is still out there, after all this time.

Raven was mandatory, because after hating on Hana, I started loving Raven instead. She was this tough Invalid who knew exactly what she wanted, and sometimes; exactly what she needed to do.
Requiem was boring. It had its peaks, but I’m thinking that this was a crappy book. I was shocked, and angry that this was the ending. That this was where Lauren Oliver ended the trilogy. Because it wasn’t really a good book, and it wasn’t really a good ending. She ended it in the middle of action, suddenly, it was just poof, finished, like it was laughing in my face. So I started looking for an epilogue, but there was none.

Requiem became some kind of Twilight thingy, where Lena is so in love with Julian, but she still loves Alex, and they’re both in love with her, so she kind of wants to be with them both and it’s just sad and weird. I also thought that there would be some kind of clearing; like we got to know what happened to Portland and the rest of America. Did the resistance die? Or did they manage to make a new America? There were so many unanswered questions I was actually angry…

After I read Hana, I started on Pandemonium the same night. Now this has been my favorite book of the trilogy so far because it’s so much more action filled and it’s got me sitting on the tip of my toes reading. Which is what I really love about reading books. That anxiety and that feeling of being scared to what’s going to happen next.

Pandemonium goes kind of deeper into the wild, who’s there, how does Lena start building her life there? What is she doing? And the thing I love about this book is the way Lauren Oliver actually writes this book in “now” and “then” instead of putting it into chapters.

The “Now” and “Then” building makes me keep reading even though I should have been in bed two hours ago. It’s really exciting, and the way Lena transforms in this book is mandatory for the rest of the series (or at least that’s what I think). The exciting part is also that there are some new characters introduced, characters that are also kind of important for Lena’s life and how it’s going to be, in the “end”.

Now, this book also introduces us to more of the society, the DFA, which is the disease control people who believe in a disease free America. Now, when Lena’s life dramatically transforms in Delirium at the end, this book kind of swoops us over for her new love-interest, who’s kind of a big deal. It also takes us into the world of Delirium, outside Portland and where Lena was brought up, and into this whole new place of people.

★★★★☆ because this book is more what I would like the whole trilogy to be, more exciting and action filled. It shows us that Lauren Oliver can do better, and I think that this books shows exactly who she could be as a writer.