Review: Requiem by Lauren Oliver

Requiem {Delirium #3} by Lauren Oliver
My rating: 3.5 stars
Goodreads summary: Now an active member of the resistance, Lena has transformed. The nascent rebellion that was underway 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 infiltrate the borderlands to stamp out the rebels.

As Lena navigates the increasingly dangerous terrain of the Wilds, her best friend, Hana, lives a safe, loveless life in Portland as the fiancée of the young mayor. Requiem is told from both Lena and Hana's points of view. They live side by side in a world that divides them until, at last, their stories converge.

My thoughts: I'll start off with the things I did like about this book, which is Lauren Oliver's writing style. She writes in such a beautiful and poetic way that I love. I love how she describes relationships, from Raven and Tack to Lena and Julian and Alex.

And you can’t love, not fully, unless you are loved in return.

We get two points of view in this book: Hana and Lena. The Hana chapters were informative and seeing from her POV after she was cured was interesting, but I enjoyed the Lena chapters more because there was more action and suspense going on. I really like Hana as a character, but I feel like she could have played a more important role in this series.

This is how Tack and Raven work: It’s their private language of push and return, argument and concession. With the cure, relationships must be reinvented every day, languages constantly decoded and deciphered.

I don't know what it is about Raven and Tack, but I love them and their relationship. I read the short novella about Raven beforehand and it made me love her so much more as a character plus I loved seeing how she met Tack. Tack is such a tough character and it seems like he has no feelings, but he does have them and seeing those glimpses where he does show his feelings make my heart happy especially when they're for Raven.

Despite the fact that Raven and Tack are often fighting, it’s impossible to imagine one without the other. They are like two plants that have grown around each other - they strangle and squeeze and support at the same time. 

Now, to the love triangle. Alex or Julian?
After I read Pandemonium, I was 100% Team Julian, but then I read the novella about Alex and then I started liking Alex again. I still don't know who I would prefer Lena to be with. Alex was her first love, but with him "dying" it was more realistic and then with Julian she learned to love again and I feel like I know Julian more. I think I lean more towards sweet, cute, and loving Julian.

I like a final book in a series to have a resolution that doesn't leave so many unanswered questions. Those are the best books in my opinion. Sadly, this was not the case for Requiem.

We, the readers, are left to imagine the ending, but that doesn't satisfy me. I want it written! We could have at least gotten an epilogue! I think epilogues are almost always essential for dystopian novels because we  get to see how the world is put back together. But no, we are left to "imagine" whatever we want which some readers like, but I don't.

My heart will forever be saddened by the ending because there was so much to flesh out from the series. Pandemonium is still my favorite of this trilogy and I will keep on waiting for some type of epilogue in the future by Lauren Oliver.