requiem | Diary of an Eager Reader

Title: Requiem
Author: Lauren Oliver
Publisher/Year: Harper Collins Publishers 3/5/13
Length: 267 pages
Series: Delirium #3

Overview

This exciting finale to Lauren Oliver’s New York Times bestselling Delirium trilogy is a riveting blend of nonstop action and forbidden romance in a dystopian United States.

Now an active member of the resistance, Lena has transformed. The nascent rebellion that was underway inPandemonium 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.

With lyrical writing, Lauren Oliver seamlessly interweaves the peril that Lena faces with the inner tumult she experiences after the reappearance of her first love, Alex, the boy she thought was dead. Sophisticated and wide-ranging, Requiem brings the Delirium trilogy to a thrilling conclusion.

My Thoughts

You guys can only imagine how long i was waiting for this book to come out – i was sitting on the edge of my seat to get it and trying to get through my re-reads of books 1 and 2 so that i was fully up to speed with what was going on. finally – 2 days ago i started reading Requiem and i’m not quite sure what i think about it.

So at the end of Pandemonium (book 2), Lena and Julian find out that they were pawns for Raven/Tack and the resistance. it was known that they would be captured by the Scavengers who were working for the DFA (how backwards). ….so lena wasn’t very happy with the situation all around. Amidst all this though, she found that she had growing feelings for Julian and started to develop their relationship a bit. The challenge being that Alex still holds her heart and Julian was basically giving his to her. Teenage Angst right?

So, at the beginning of Requiem, we’re at the camp where Alex is now part of the group, and there’s all sorts of uncomfortable ness going on. Alex is hurt that he held on to the thought that Lena was waiting for him and when he walks in and sees that it’s not the case, he’s bitter. Mind you Lena WAS holding on to the hope that Alex was some how ok yet she assumed he was dead since she saw him get shot and captured at the end of Delirium. All that being said, lots of confusion and no one is happy.

So, throughout Requiem, we have the cooling off of the Lena/Julian relationship, the avoidance of Alex/Lena, and then a new girl comes along that steals Alex’s attention which pisses Lena off so then we have Alex/Coral. Lena is quite jealous and that’s something that manifests itself throughout the story as well.

What i liked about this story though is that we go back and forth not between ‘now and then’ like we did in book 2 but between Lena and Hana since their stories are going on at the same time. Hana’s been ‘cured’ and she’s slated to marry Fred Hargrove who is the new mayor of the town (his father was the old mayor but was killed in the Incidents). In any event, Hana’s life isn’t as glorious as it once was…yes compared to material things it’s just as grand, but the cure didn’t work as it should and she’s not happy in her situation. she’s also finding out things about her life and her match that are unsettling and cause her to re-evaluate just about everything.

As we go back and forth between the stories, i keep wondering if they will intercept. i assume they will but the stories go on completely different journeys. you learn things about each person that you didn;t expect and you get to see a bit more background of other characters which is nice.

While we’re watching things unfold in both worlds, we see that Portland is the meeting point. The Resistance are planning an attack to breach the city that Lena grew up in and met Alex in, and Hana is still living there and is planning her wedding. Things go down in Portland – that’s for sure.

To sum it up though, i’m a bit upset about how the ending netted out, and i’m wondering if there will be a book 4 since i think that the ending fell quite a bit short.

BEWARE OF POTENTIAL SPOILERS IN MY QUESTIONS BELOW

1) What happens with Lena/Alex?

2) What happens with Julian?

3) What’s next for Hana?

4) What about Grace/Bee?

5) what happens to Fred? did he stay home like Hana asked?

6) really – what happens with Portland and the cities? and what role will the resistance play in the future

Title: Annabel
Author: Lauren Oliver
Publisher/Year: HarperCollins Publishers 12/26/12
Length: 50 pages
Series: Delirium #.5

Overview

Lena’s mother, Annabel, has always been a mystery—a ghost in Lena’s past. Until now.

Discover her secrets in Lauren Oliver’s brilliant original digital story set in the world of New York Times bestsellersDelirium and Pandemonium.

Lena Halloway’s mother, Annabel, supposedly committed suicide when Lena was only six years old. That’s the lie that Lena grew up believing, but the truth is very different. As a rebellious teenager, Annabel ran away from home and straight into the man she knew she was destined to marry. The world was different then—the regulations not as stringent, the cure only a decade old. Fast forward to the present, and Annabel is consigned to a dirty prison cell, where she nurtures her hope of escape and scratches one word over and over into the walls: Love.

But Annabel, like Lena, is a fighter. Through chapters that alternate between her past and present, Annabel reveals the story behind her failed cures, her marriage, the births of her children, her imprisonment, and, ultimately, her daring escape.

My Thoughts

I had forgotten that this was going to be one of the smaller novellas off the series while we’re waiting for Requiem to come out, so it was a nice miss on my part. mind you i had pre-ordered it, so it wasn’t a complete miss.

Something that i’ve come to really enjoy about Lauren Oliver’s writing style is that she gives us both the past perspective and back story on things as well as the current day POV. It makes sure that we know why things happened as they did and maybe get a better sense of who these characters are.

So …Annabel – she’s Len’s mother if you don’t remember. What we learned in the previous books was that we thought she had committed suicide. That wasn’t the case – instead she was imprisoned because her ties to the part of society that wasn’t in agreement of ‘the cure’ and what was going on. So…we find that Len’s rebelliosness comes from her mom – Annabel had in fact run away from home to escape what was going to be her fate…and this gave her a real taste of what life was before everything changed and of what it could be.

When we’re told in previous books that she had committed suicide…we’re led to believe that maybe she didn’t have the strength to care for her kids – and that she didn’t see things in them that a mother would. As we read this novella though, we learn that it’s FAR FAR from the case. I actually like annabel a lot more and it makes me happy that we’ve found that there’s a reconnection going on that will hopefully be continued in Requiem.

The nice surprises here are that we learn of the interesting pairing with her husband (Lena’s dad), and we learn that what society thinks happens once the cure is administered isn’t always the case.

The even better piece of this story is that there was an extended ‘trailer’ to Requiem at the end, so it was a tease for sure but now i really can’t wait to see what this next installment brings.

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