Review: Requiem by Lauren Oliver

Requiem by Lauren Oliver
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

Once upon a time, I read Delirium and liked it.

Once upon another time, I read Pandemonium and liked it even more.

Now, in the present, I just finished reading Requiem and by golly am I shocked. Shocked by how bad this book was.

Seriously, what on earth happened here?

I really liked this series; I loved how Lena grew in the first book from someone who was all about rules and order, to someone who was in love. Then when Alex 'died' I liked that, because Lena had a very unrealistic view on love and started to understand why people wanted the cure. The cure, would keep this pain away from her.

Then the second book came and the book introduced a different more grown up Lena. Alex was gone, but Julian came and he was awesome. I liked him better than Alex, which should have been the first sign to me that I should stop caring about him because he gets totally shafted in Requiem. But that's jumping ahead. In the second book, Lena and Julian are lovey dovey and bam Alex returns and we've entered the forsaken love triangle realm of YA.

Requiem then comes and instead of getting only Lena's view on the world, we also see Hana. I liked Hana in the first novel, so I enjoyed seeing her here. She's different, now that she's cured, but her story is still a lot more interesting than Lena, who I've officially come to hate in this novel.

Before I get into her, here's what I thought about the book.

The Good:

Julian. He's still loveable and an all round great guy. He's also not childish and considerate of other people's feelings. He's awesome! I don't want him to be with Lena and I don't ship them, I simply am a fan of Julian.

Hana's plot was interesting too, her chapters were too short so we never got a better look into her world, but it was still good. Hana has to deal with getting married and the guilt that has plagued her since Lena left. Her husband to be isn't all that great and the more she learns about him, the more she begins to question everything else.

I also liked how sure of herself she was. She's cured and she likes it. Granted, I think if you're cured you'll like it either way, but I liked that she wasn't struggling with the loss of love. She accepted it and moved on. It is what it is and what's done is done.

But the best thing about Hana's story, there was no love triangle. In fact, there was no romance at all. It’s just Hana being cool.

The Okay:

I still don't really understand what the loss of love really does. Hana's parents seem to care about her a great deal, but I don't see how that's possible if there is no love. It isn't described much in this novel, compared to the others, so I suppose that's a good thing.

The Bad

There are spoilers ahead, so be warned. There's also a lot of ranting....lots.

Lena and Alex are, to quote GlaDos, horrible. You know, I think they might just be the worse couple that I've read in a YA novel thus far. They're childish, petty, and so incredibly stupid. Once Alex shows up, he sees Lena with Julian and decides to let her go. Because that's what good boyfriends do.

But in order to do this, he acts like an ass. He's rude, he's whiny, and he's just downright horrible to Lena. He tells her that he doesn't love her and that they've changed. Lena cries, he acts like he doesn't care. So what does Lena do? She runs into the arms of Julian. She needs comfort and to make Alex jealous. Alex, not one to be upped in the childish games, finds a love interest for himself in Coral. Lena hates her. Alex hates Julian. Coral likes Alex. Julian loves Lena.

Coral and Julian both get strung around while Alex and Lena continue their petty games.

Seriously, Alex and Lena just suck.

So they fight, they both run into the arms of others, then at the end of the novel Alex and Julian fight and Alex leaves. Before he does he leaves a note mentioning the story of Solomon. Get it, Lena is the baby and Alex is the mother who doesn't want her chopped up. See, he's such a caring guy that he's letting Lena stay with Julian. Awwww.

Once this happens, Coral tells Lena that Alex really loves her and Lena decides the best way to deal with this is become cold and distant with Julian. Julian, should cut his losses. Lena is only there for him when Alex isn't in the picture and when he's being a jerkwad.

And this is my biggest problem with love triangles. Why introduce another character whose only purpose is to be used like this? It's not fun, it's not cute. It's just depressing and makes the MC look really bad. Why do I need to see the MC kiss another guy, when I know that she's in love with someone else and would rather be with them? That's horrible. Just horrible.

It's even worse when the second guy is better than the first.

With Requiem, there is actually no point to Julian's character other than to play second string to Alex.

Now you may be thinking that I'm stressing way too much over this, but when Lena's chapters came this was the main storyline. There was some stuff about the rebels and invalids, but the main theme was Lena loves Alex, Alex loves Lena, but they're too childish to communicate.

I mean, there was even a conversation between the two where Lena tells Alex to go run off to Coral and he says, "You don't get it do you?" Of course she doesn't you moron! She can't read your mind, she only knows what you tell her and you keep telling her that you don't love her or need her in your life. What else is she suppose to think!

Honestly, if this is what love makes people do in this world, then I support the program to remove it from their lives.

Overall:

This is a disappointing ending to an otherwise good series. Requiem is just beyond disappointing and the love triangle was horrible. All it did was make me hate Lena and Alex, which is a shame, since I liked them in the first book. Even worse, is that it left me with a bad taste with regards to this trilogy  Instead of thinking, "Hey, this is good." I'll always think, "Lena and Alex *spitting noise*".

2 stars out of 5 

Review: Pandemonium by Lauren Oliver

Pandemonium by Lauren Oliver
My rating: 4.5 of 5 stars

Lauren Oliver just keeps getting better and better for me. There hasn't been a book that I haven't liked from her, then again this is only the third book that I've read by her. But I think it's safe to say that I've become a fan of her work and writing.

The Good:

The plot was fantastic. Lena does change a bit from Delirium, but her change is expected and very realistic. The chapters went back and forth from "then", which takes place right after Lena escapes to the Wild, and "now", which happens many months after this when Lena is living in New York.

Both show how Lena is adapting to her new world. In the wild, she experiences hunger, death, and survival. In New York, she's experiencing survival in a different form. One that is a lot more dangerous than battling the elements.

At first, I was really into the chapters about the Wild, but after awhile the chapters taking place in New York got really interesting and I wanted to know what was happening.

Since Alex is captured or dead, there is a new love interest and I was ready to hate him. I hate love triangles and knew that the new guy didn't stand a chance. But the more I read about Julian, the more I hoped Alex was dead.

Alex didn't really have much of a presence. His role was to open Lena up to a world she never knew about, because of this he was a great guy without any flaws or hangups. Julian was so different. There was a childish quality, but also someone who was willing to stand up fight. He struggled, like Lena did, but his change was natural and their relationship made sense given their circumstances. He was also flawed and I liked that about him and surprisingly enough liked him with Lena.

The Okay:

I still don't think that the virus and love is explained all too well. There is a mention that passion is close to love, so people stay away from it. But for the most part, it still doesn't make sense to me. Unlike the last book, we don't really see much of the cured world, so this wasn't as big of a problem as before.

I would like a better explanation though.

The Bad:

Sadly, the bad is due to the ending which is predictable, but something I wish didn't happen. It's a bit of a spoiler, so if you'd like to read the spoilery rant, click here to visit my goodreads review of this.


Overall, the book was fantastic. I enjoyed it a lot more than Delirium and loved how the characters were realistic and flawed. I hate the ending, but I'm hoping that the next book won't focus so much on it and instead on the resistance.

Rating: 4.5 stars

Review: Delirium by Lauren Oliver

Delirium by Lauren Oliver
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Lauren Oliver is a great writer, she proved that to me when I read Before I Fall, and with Delirium the same great writing is there. The story isn't as good, but I think it's due to the premise of the story.

Delirium is about a world where love is a sickness and when you reach the age of eighteen, you need to be cured of this horrible virus.

Once you are cured, everything is better. Except, it's not. Parents no longer have feelings towards their kids, couples go through the motion, and people stop loving each other. In this world, it's hunky dory to the people, but to the reader we can clearly see that this is really messed up.

The Good:

At first, I was bored Lena and loved Hana. By the middle of the novel, I still loved Hana, but I liked Lena too. Lena is someone who was really into the system, so her reluctance to do anything, given with what happened to her mother, was realistic and made sense. She does start to change once she falls in love, but even then when she first finds out what Alex really is, she stops all contact with him. In a lot of other novels, she would have continued her relationship and changed completely, but Lena didn't. I really liked that about her.

Did I mention that Hana was awesome? If I didn't, then well...she was awesome.

I really liked the world that Lauren Oliver created. Not the virus, but the fact that the people are so heavily governed and that they think that this is for the good of the people is scary. Hmmm, maybe this is why the government decided to 'cure' everyone of love when they're eighteen. They reach the age to vote, get cured, then stop caring about how heavily oppressed they truly are.

The Okay

Once Lena falls in love, she starts to become a bit stupid. Considering how oppressive her country has become and how scared she was before, she seems to stop caring. Even though she knows of the consequences.

I've never been in love before or in a relationship so I don't know how that affects or changes people, but I do know that if I lived there and was in love with someone, I wouldn't have done some of the things Lena did.

The Bad
Sadly, while I did like many things in the book, the thing that I didn't like was the premise. I think it's because love wasn't really defined properly in this. For example, I do love my family and with that love comes caring, loyalty, and a bunch of other emotions. And we do see that with Aunt Carol and her children, she doesn't have any motherly love for them and treats them in a mechanical kind of manner. She's doing things for them, not because she loves them, but because it's her job and duty as a mother.

At the same time, there are scenes when you could tell that she does care for her children, husband, and Lena. Her trying to remind Lena that after she's cured she won't want to hang out with Hana so much, showed that she did care. She even looked a little sad when saying this. She actively tries to help Lena through her examinations, because she wants what is best for her.

But then, she calls her kid stupid because one of her daughters can't speak. It might just be me, but I kind of wish the virus was explained a bit more, because it did seem inconsistent at some points.

Other than that, I quite liked the book.

Rating: 4 stars