Requiem

by Lauren Oliver

"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."

~~~~~The following review will contain spoilers!~~~~

 Requiem was a wonderful end to Lauren Oliver's trilogy. Despite lacking complete closure, the dual perspectives of Lena and Hana added a dimension to the unraveling of the story that dramatized its finish. Seeing the cure from Hana's point of view at this point in the series provided a presentation of its positive qualities. Hana felt free, and that she no longer needed to answer to the orders of other. Despite the larger picture of the lack of love and freedom brought about by the cure, in these moments, it seemed, it could indeed be something beautiful. Considering the world of Delirium in this varied manner led me to appreciate its issues on a deeper level.

Though Lena does not explicitly choose between Alex and Julian, there are several hints throughout the storyline that suggest she has made up her mind. Her situation is indeed complicated, and though an ambiguous end was frustrating on a certain level, it brought, at the same time, a refreshing change to the concept of a love triangle. I am convinced Lena has definitively chosen Alex, regardless of the fact that she did not state this in the book.

But what exactly happened to Alex? He was apparently dead after the first book, returned in the second, but the third brought little explanation. His sacrifices for Lena were wonderful, but countered strongly by his disdain for her. Feeling hurt for being apparently forgotten so quickly is understandable, but I felt there was more that could be explained about Alex, something necessary that was missing. What did they do to him that made him so bitter?

The moment between Hana and Lena in the mayor's home was one of my favorite parts of Requiem. The fact that their friendship has held through the conflict that surrounds them, and that Hana's love for Lena surpasses the oppression of the cure, was executed very well. Lena's anger and reluctance to help Hana made sense, and yet if she had not gone through with the rescue, I feel the unraveling events would have been unrealistic and unnerving.

I hoped for a reunion at the end of the novel, that amidst the chaos Lena would regroup with Gracie, Hana, her mother, Alex. I wish, too, that Raven hadn't been murdered. But in the end, the image of the people tearing down the walls together, in a metaphor for all of the change that they will provoke, was very visual and powerful.

I'm looking forward to Lauren Oliver's future novels, and it's a shame this trilogy will not be adapted for a TV show.

4/5 stars.