Reviews with content warning for Gun violence - Requiem

Reviews tagging 'Gun violence'

In the series finale of Delirium, Requiem takes us through what happens when passion is lost, or taken from us. Following Pandemonium, Requiem shows us again the give-and-take of love; the good, bad, and the ugly. Lena had experienced grief through Pandemonium, learning to accept Alex’s death and allowing herself to feel the butterflies of love all over again with Julian. Requiem takes that grief even further; her first love has returned, and even worse, seemingly hates her and wants nothing to do with her. We also experience the overwhelming sickness that is guilt and remorse, and Lena learns what it feels like to deal with jealousy and resentment.

Although on its surface, Requiem is a story of rebellion and uprising, it continues the theme of the entire series in exploring the basis of human emotion. Lauren Oliver’s prose is as beautiful as ever, and the world is incredibly immersive. The stakes are high, and interpersonal struggles are intertwined with the looming despair of a world on the brink of war. As a series finale, Requiem does a wonderful job at continuing the events and themes of the previous two books, and coming to a conclusion that feels natural and fitting within the story. She also expertly keeps in the nod to Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet and explores an alternate timeline of those events. What if, believing Romeo to be dead, Juliet grieved and moved on, only for Romeo to return? Lauren Oliver weaves together classic literature, Biblical allegories, and beautiful prose that results in an emotional conclusion.

Requiem, following in Pandemonium’s footsteps, is told from two different but connected points of view, Lena and Hana. Lena is now a full-blown member of the Resistance, and the events that happened in Pandemonium have exploded into just that; pandemonium. After the assassination of Thomas Fineman, Portland and the nation at large have erupted into riots and an even harsher crackdown on rules and regulations. The Wilds are no longer safe, the Invalids are no longer ignored, and regulators are sent in with bombs, guns, and tear gas to take care of the problem. Lena’s storyline is a suspenseful race through the Wilds, with the goal of reaching a town called Waterbury, that recently had its own insurrection that saw the victory of the Resistance and the exodus of the mayor and its inhabitants.

On the other hand, we follow Hana, who has now been cured, and is preparing to be married to her match, Fred Hargrove, the son of the now deceased mayor of Portland. Lena and Hana both explore their own different internal struggles. Lena tries to come to terms with the grief she feels knowing that her love with Alex is likely to not return, and the guilt and indifference she feels towards Julian now that her true love is impossible to ignore, and the heavy grief and guilt she feels for the people she has left behind. Hana, though, deals with questioning her place in the world and her new, cured self. She has flashes of emotion and thoughts that shouldn’t happen to cured brains, and her “zombified” thought process reads a lot like depression or numb dissociation. She is pushed and pulled through her pairing with Fred Hargrove and her future; dressing up, obeying, and staying quiet. At the same time, the cure couldn’t keep out the intense emotions she was always prone to, and she herself struggles with immense guilt, as we learn that Hana is the one responsible for turning Alex and Lena in during the final act of Delirium.

I loved the double-sided storyline, and Lauren Oliver is a master at connecting two seemingly disjointed points of view. In the final act of the book, I had the feeling of running downhill. The momentum was incredible and unstoppable, and the way Lena and Hana’s storylines paralleled each other as the novel’s events crescendoed was picturesque and suspenseful. I absolutely devoured this book, and couldn’t wait to find out what was going to happen next. The double storyline played into the feeling of suspense and action so nicely, and kept me eager to read more. I also admired how skilled the author was at giving both Lena and Hana their own distinctive voices. She portrayed their different thinking styles so well, while still keeping her signature poetic prose. Lena’s parts were a whirlwind of emotion and endless thoughts and anxiety, while Hana’s started out robotic and simple and opened up as Hana’s character developed. The writing style was a perfect guide to follow the growth of both Lena and Hana.

Lena’s character development stutters in Requiem, for good reason. In Pandemonium, she was admittedly badass; hyper-independent, taken under Raven and Tack’s wing, a freedom fighter that would do whatever it took to fight for what she believed in. In Requiem, though, her world is turned upside down as she struggles between Alex and Julian. I think Lauren Oliver does a fantastic job at staying true to Lena’s character. She is our heroine, but she is still a young girl. As much as we as readers have come to love her for all of her faults, she is not perfect, and she never pretends otherwise. There are moments in Requiem where I genuinely did not like Lena, and I think that's fantastic. She is terrible to Julian, who she brought out to the Wilds completely unprepared. She spends the majority of the book being passive-aggressive to Julian, never giving him a full explanation as to what she’s feeling or trying to figure out. She debates leaving Coral to die because she is jealous of her growing closeness with Alex. She comes across as a whiny, bratty girl now that Alex is back and the emotions she worked so hard to stamp out come rushing back to her. The author uses this painful experience to callback to the Book of Shhh and the teachings that Lena had gone through so much to unlearn. At her heart, though, Lena is still the girl we met in Delirium. She is still full of love, passion, and a strong sense of justice. She knows what’s right, and although she seesaws between being loveable and hateable, she never loses the core of her character. She even calls out her own toxic traits in her inner monologues, and I never got the feeling that the narrative was shying from Lena's faults. By the end of the book, the Lena I loved comes back in full-swing, and the pure love she holds in her heart once again drives her forward, through everything that tries to knock her down.

Lauren Oliver makes sure to give our side characters some love as well. Hana’s character development is less so, but I didn’t expect too much, since Lena is the main character. Mostly, Hana’s storyline is about her overcoming her programming after the cure, and continues the idea that human emotions are meant to be felt, and some are so powerful that no amount of hiding or numbing can destroy them. It is ultimately Hana’s love for Lena that

Spoiler
breaks her out of the mental fog and re-radicalizes her. Of course, Hana’s guilt and remorse for what she did to Lena plays a part, too,

but the bond the girls share is unbreakable. On the other hand, Julian does a complete 180 from where he was in Pandemonium. Before, he was programmed, submissive, and scared, to the point that a lot of the story felt like he was the stereotypical damsel in distress, and Lena was his Prince Charming. I didn’t mind that side of him, and I enjoyed Julian’s character even then, but in the Wilds, he becomes a new person. He is self-determined, a natural-born leader, and finds his voice again through the fear. His love for Lena is steady and supportive, and he gives her space and patience to figure out the messy feelings and thoughts reeling inside her. In the meantime, he focuses on things that give him life. He learns to hunt and fight, and eventually

Spoiler

earns his place as a member of the Resistance, despite being met with suspicion and wariness at first.

Lena and Julien's relationship, despite its faults, is great representation for healthy relationships and love, and loving your person as they experience the ups and downs in life. Alex is recovering from extreme trauma after being taken to the Crypts, tortured, and left to die. He comes across as broody and emotional, and downright cold and unfeeling towards Lena, but the author writes it well enough that we can tell it’s an act, even if Lena can’t. Alex serves as a representation of the finale’s central themes of love and sacrifice. We even briefly meet

Spoiler

Lena’s mother and experience the joy, fear, and confusion that is their reunion. Lena’s long-held trauma and grief is finally somewhat mended. Her inner child is bared in its rawest form for the reader to see, as she finally asks her mother why she never came back for her. Although Annabel, (who now goes by Bee as part of the Resistance) too, serves as a symbol of sacrifice, she is also a symbol of repair and reconnection. She doesn’t make excuses for the pain that Lena feels, she just allows her to feel it and gives Lena the space to rebuild the foundations of their connection.

The whole book uses truly, truly beautiful writing and themes that give the reader an incredibly heartfelt and raw human experience.

As an aside, something I really enjoyed about the series as a whole, but especially Requiem, is that the Resistance and rebellion is not shown as beautiful or utopian. It is harsh, and unfeeling, and our characters are forced to do things that they would never do. The series is honest about the things that people do when they are backed against a wall. People become animals when they are treated like animals. When Lena’s people

Spoiler

arrive at the Resistance stronghold at Waterbury, the reality of the ongoing civil war is made glaringly obvious. Thousands of bodies displaced, homeless, starving, and living in their own filth. People made to fight and kill each other over something as small as a can of tuna, or a blanket. This is the reality of resistance and rebellion.

I find it incredibly timely in 2022, as the anti-work, anti-capitalist movement grows and many people in my generation speak of rebellion with rose-colored glasses and high hopes. The reality of war is this; many people will die, thousands more will be harmed, and the effects will be felt everywhere by everyone. It doesn’t happen in a matter of days and it doesn’t come together easily in a beautiful moment of comraderie and peace. I really admire the author for striking a balance between hope and reality, and not sugar-coating the harsh edges of rebellion and civil action like so many young adult dystopian novels do.

The conclusion to Requiem and Delirium as a whole, albeit a bit rushed, fit in very well with Lauren Oliver’s idea of human emotion and love. The book's final chapter is glittering, and features a heartfelt call from Lena to the reader to break down the walls that bar us; both the physical and the internal. The conclusion serves as a culmination to everything we’ve touched on so far. Love is messy. It is painful and terrifying, but beautiful and comforting. It can be our strength, and it can be our weakness. Love is a bastion against everything that is terrible in the world, and the people who we love and who love us are sometimes our only safe place in a world that is at once unknown and terrifying. In a world where fighting for our lives seems to be a daily occurrence, love, for all of its thorns, is always worth it in the end.

Content Warnings

disabledmermaid's review against another edition

Go to review page

adventurous dark emotional tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.0

This one started out well. It alternates between Lena’s point of view and Hana’s

Hana is cured and getting ready for her upcoming wedding, but slowly realizing that her world and her fiance is not everything she thought it was

Over in Lena’s world, Alex is back and it looks like there’s gonna be the ever-predictable love triangle. Except there isn’t. Nothing ever happens. For the ENTIRE BOOK Alex glares and ignores Lena, she glares and ignores him, and also goes back and forth between treating Julian like her boyfriend and treating him like she can’t stand him. Meanwhile there’s a war going on.

The ending of the book...was there one? It seems like the author couldn’t come up with a way to resolve everything and tried to disguise it by making it sound vaguely philosophical.

Content Warnings

More...

Reviews tagging 'Gun violence'

Requiem, by Lauren Oliver

crybabybea's review

disabledmermaid's review against another edition