Thursday 25 July 2013

Requiem Review


4 - 4 1/2 stars

"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."

I was pleasantly surprised by Requiem - I had glanced at a few reviews on Goodreads which hadn't filled me with a lot of confidence, which is the main reason I didn't rush to buy and read it immediately. I am pleased that I wasn't completely put off though, because this is a great season finale. Maybe not quite as amazing as finales like Clockwork Princess or Mockingjay, but still pretty awesome.

I love Oliver's writing style - the way that she constructs her sentences and lets ideas build within them - it creates a vivid yet personal first person narrative. I think that these books would be really great to read aloud in a reading group. 

The quality of the writing has always been one of the big draws of the series for me and is probably why I will rush to buy whatever Oliver writes next. 

What I love about dystopian novels is how different they all are and how individual and creative each series concept is. Reading the back cover of Delirium was one of those 'this is going to be amazing' moments and the series hasn't disappointed. 

However, there was a couple of points at which I thought the concept could have gone a little further - some of the 'zombies' react more emotionally than I expect them to, which was particularly noticeable in Hanna's chapters. 

It shouldn't come as a surprise to anyone who has read Fire that I like stories told from multiple perspectives, so I loved that we saw things from Hanna's POV in Requiem. I think that the story made more sense overall because of it and it was great to see the world Oliver has created from the perspective of someone who has been 'cured'. It provided more depth to the story and it was interesting to see important events described by the other side. 

This next paragraph is all about the ending of the book and the love triangle, so don't read on if you haven't already read Requiem:

I have yet to read a series where the guy I was rooting for didn't win. Maybe I'm just lucky, or maybe I have a knack for picking the right one. Either way, I felt that this series was the closest I've got to thinking that my guy might not get the girl… I think that was probably the reason I couldn't put the book down - I had to know who Lena chose! For this reason, I am mostly happy with the way that Oliver chose to end the series, although there's definitely room for more happiness - it wasn't quite the happily ever after I had wanted which, in a series which is supposed to be all about love, was rather disappointing. Instead, Oliver focuses on dystopian themes of freedom and society and happiness, which is great and sticks well to her genre, but I don't feel that it accurately reflected the stand-out theme which made this series so different. However, it was still a much, much, much better ending than the Julian-centred alternative I had been panicking about, so I'm quite content overall. I also thought that the final paragraph was really powerful and an emphatic way to end.

4 comments:

  1. Hey! Great post. I'm happy you enjoyed the ending of Requiem, I myself was a bit disappointed by the ambiguity of it all, but I still think Oliver's writing is just so poetic, that I'm not sorry for having read the books. This series most closely reminded me of the Matched trilogy.

    I found the link to this review through Goodreads, and having read and reviewed the Delirium series myself, thought I'd check it out.

    Just followed your blog! :)

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  2. Thanks for following, I'm pleased you discovered the blog - I will go and check your review out too.

    The ending was quite ambiguous and an epilogue would have finished it off a little more (although perhaps that's a short story plan, since Oliver has already released a few for the series).

    I gave up on the Matched series after the first book, as it wasn't as interesting as I had been expecting, but maybe I should give book 2 a chance?

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    1. Thanks for stopping by! :) Unfortunately Delirium pilot did not make it to the air - it has not been picked up by the network. :( Not sure if there is anything in the future now, because FOX holds the rights to it as I understand. But I definitely think it explains a lot about the ending...

      http://insidetv.ew.com/2013/05/08/delirium-pilot/

      Nah, don't bother with Matched, it was quite similar to Delirium, but not as good. Did you try Divergent trilogy? If not, that's a worthy read (similar to Hunger Games). And there is a movie coming out next year.

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    2. Ah, that's a shame. I haven't read Divergent yet, but it's definitely on my list of books to get hold of this summer.

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