Requiem (Delirium Trilogy, #3)

by Lauren Oliver

[KitsuneBae]

For the full review, please visit Thoughts and Pens

Lauren Oliver’s last book for the Delirium Trilogy was aptly titled as I literally lamented over this joke of a book. I am a die-hard fan of Lauren ever since I’ve read Before I Fall and Delirium. I have fallen inlove with the way she make poetry out of these books, so deep and poignant that you’d just want to lie down and relive the moments in your mind. But Requiem made me howl in rage. How did that beautiful poem turned into an insensible haiku? It was as if Lauren didn’t know how to end the story gracefully like she was somehow lost in limbo.

Pandemonium had ended in a thrilling cliffhanger when Lena discovered that Alex is still alive. And that ending made me expect a lot from this book. The days that I pondered on how it would be delivered was like I was on a pilgrimage. Only to realize in the end, that my whole purpose was for nothing.
More than anything else, Requiem’s plot was so shallow and dragging. Almost two thirds of the book was dedicated to either Lena’s musing about Alex or hers and the Invalids’ journey to this and that. I don’t have any problem if they need to undertake journeys as long it’s not overly done that it becomes boring. And I had had enough of that in the second book, thanks by the way.
And as if that wasn’t enough of a torture, we were also given unessential accounts of Hanna’s life like it was wholly important to the cause of the Invalids. Mind you, Lauren even failed to describe how Hanna should behave after her cure from amor deliria nervosa was unsuccessful.

Requiem’s character development was also stunted like things did not recover from the pandemonium that had taken place in book 2. Alex became a background character that without the nudges from the author, you’d forget that he was the one who set things in motion in Delirium. What about Julian Fineman, our hero in the second book? Well, since Requiem is all about Lena and Hanna, he was also reduced to a wallflower. And that goes the same for the other characters, disposable summer decorations.
To complement the boring character development, aside from being shallow and dragging, the plot was totally predictable. Well, there were twists planted along the way but I think these were done in a last attempt to save the whole thing from crumbling into pieces. Most unfortunately, Requiem is far from salvation as it ended with a striking disappointment. Yeah, open ending. As in literally, with plenty of unanswered questions, you know what I mean. It was like you endured all those to-die for heartaches, persevered the hardships and fought all those battles in books 1 and 2 for a BIG NOTHING. Nada.
There’s only one thing that I liked about this book and that was how Lena and her mother finally made up. At least, there was a bit of a drama there.

In an overall note, Requiem epically failed to deliver. And I hope Lauren would take time to ponder on things that make this book a major flop and not make the same mistake on her new book. Otherwise, I might settle for fan fictions which I think would make a far better conclusion to what should have been a grand series.