Margin Notes: Requiem

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.

Requiem is told from both Lena’s and Hana’s points of view. The two girls live side by side in a world that divides them until, at last, their stories converge.

My rating: 3 of 5 stars

So, this book. I read it SO FAST and loved every minute of it. Except the ending! What a weird non-ending. That kind of ruined it for me. I feel like there could 100% be another book in the series. I hate how all of these authors are forcing trilogies. C'mon! You can extend it beyond that!

That said, I'm really glad Hana was such a big part of this book. I appreciated the mix of plot development and pace. I like Julian, but he felt a little flat in this book.

I didn't think the culmination of the series was apparent. It seemed like, a weird battle to end on when there needed to be more of a war. We visit so many places and know of so many settlements, how does Portland affect the rest of the 'country'? And what happened after the wall was torn down? Did that stick? We didn't even see the end of the battle, let alone the war. I was left dissatisfied. Oh well.

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Click here to see my reviews of the other books in the trilogy.