On Breaking Walls: A Review of Requiem by Lauren Oliver

After finishing this book, I gave myself a full twenty-four hours before I started to compose my review (an excessive amount of thought gathering time for me). I wanted to make sure that I wrote this from my brain and not just from my gut, which felt hallow with disappointment at the end of this novel. When I finished Delirium, I had some basic issues with the story, but over all I felt that this author had some new and interesting things to say on the subject of teen love and relationships in general. With Pandemonium, I was very impressed with her ability to write internal dialogue and the character development that Lena undergoes. The only thing there that frustrated and let me down was the ending, which I honestly should have seen coming. Even that highly questionable ending, I still held out hope that Requiem would prove me right about this series, that it would draw the story together, end in a satisfying manner, and say all of the big and meaningful things I wanted this series to say. It did not. It didn't even come close.

Requiem continually switches point of view between Lena and Hana. Lena has returned to the Wilds with Julian. Her relationship with Julian and Alex is uncertain, and I'll save you some time--she never resolves her feelings. She goes all Bella Swan and hops back to Julian whenever Alex appears to be shunning her, only unlike Bella she never conclusively makes a choice. My opinion of Lena plummeted throughout this book, in part due to the love triangle issues and in part due to her utter inability to do anything useful. Hana, on the other hand, has been cured and is living a seemingly safe and charmed life, engaged to the soon-to-be mayor. I found Hana's story more interesting than I thought I would. Her conflict over whether she has lost herself after being cured--can she still feel, can she still dream, does she want to?--is thoughtful. She quickly discovers that the life that is expected of her will likely be miserable.

In terms of character development this book fails almost entirely. Instead of progressing forward, getting stronger, gaining clarity, Lena remains stagnant and perhaps even regresses a bit. Not only does she not manage to choose between the two boys who inexplicably have feelings for her, but she fails at every turn to step up and take action.

In terms of plot, well, there isn't a lot of it. I find that I'm often disappointed with how dystopian series end, because the world so often fails to undergo the radical transformation that I want to see happen. They tend to end on a barely hopeful note, and I always feel like there is so much more to the story, like we've stopped in the middle. That's how I felt with this book. Like there should be at least one more book, and of course there isn't.

More than anything, when I finished this book, I felt bad about having looked forward to it and bad about having recommended the first two. I can't imagine ever wanting to return to this series, ever rereading this book, or ever recommending it to anyone again. Obviously, if you've read the first two, you're going to read this one. In the case that you haven't read this series, and you think you might want to, I would gently caution you that it's very unsatisfying. 2 stars.

On Loss: A Review of Pandemonium by Lauren Oliver

Delirium was the first book that I reviewed this year, and it's what I would call a thinking book. I'm so always thrilled to see thinking books in the YA genre, books that treat their audience like mature, intelligent people. Naturally, I was excited to see if the sequel, Pandemonium, could accomplish the same thing.

In this book, Lena is on her own. Alex is lost to her, so now she has to make a new life and find a new purpose for herself in the Wilds. The story is divided into two parts, "Then" (her time in the wilds), and "Now" (her work in the resistance), alternating each chapter. In the Wilds, she meets Raven, the leader of a homestead, along with quite a few other Invalids. Lena has to rediscover a will to survive, and goes through the physical and emotional hardships of living on next to nothing. In the resistance, it becomes her job to keep track of Julian Fineman, the youth leader of the DFA, the most extreme of pro-cure organizations. Julian is getting ready to undergo the cure despite a medical history that means the cure will likely kill him

Positive Comments

In my review of the first book I talked about how Lena was a blank slate, somewhat bland kind of character. The author was more concerned with developing the ideas than developing the characters. In this book, however, character development is front and center. I loved Lena's journey. I loved seeing her on her own, separated from everything familiar, changing and growing stronger along the way. This book made me like a character that I previously found forgettable. That's a big accomplishment.

I loved the culture of the people in the Wilds. The spirit of hard work and endurance and finding pleasure in little things is appealing in a dystopian novel.

I liked the newly introduced characters. I loved Raven and Tack, and I felt they made great friends and mentors for Lena in her new life. I may be in the minority here, but I also really liked Julian. I found him sympathetic, and I really wanted to see him saved and brought around to the side of the resistance.

Critical Comments

I don't normally do this, but I feel like I have to. My only criticism is a spoiler so, I'm going to spoil. Ready?

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Throughout the book Lena believes Alex to be dead and that she has to move on with her life. And if I'm being honest, I wish that's how the author had written it. The book has all of this great commentary on grief and loss and rediscovering yourself and finding love again. For Lena that means loving Julian. But throughout the book I had this lingering uneasy feeling. As they say in the comic book world--if no one saw a body, don't consider that character dead. And of course I was right. Of course Alex isn't dead. So what do we get instead of a poignant loss/grief/recovery story? A FREAKING LOVE TRIANGLE. I cannot possibly articulate how desperate I am to not see any more YA love triangles.

So anyway, the ending has this big, soap opera style "That character you thought was dead is alive!" reveal, and it's extremely cheap and cliffhangery. This is the only flaw I can name for the whole book, but it's a big flaw.

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Recommendation

I feel even more confident in recommending this series after reading this book. It's a well crafted, intelligent, gripping YA novel. And no Middle Book Syndrome! 4 stars. 

On Love: A Review of Delirium by Lauren Oliver

I picked up Delirium for my Kindle when it happened to be on sale for $2.99. This is another one of those YA dystopian novels that asks a big "what if" question. In this case, what if love was considered a mental illness, and what if there were such a thing as a cure?

Lena lives in an alternate version of American society in which love is regarded as a dangerous illness. At the age of 18, everyone undergoes a procedure to be "cured", and they come out of the procedure with dampened emotions and increased complacency. Occasionally, the procedure goes wrong. In the case of Lena's mother, the cure didn't work. After undergoing the procedure three times with no success, Lena's mother commits suicide. As a result, Lena can't wait to undergo her own procedure and say goodbye to the emotions that made her mom so crazy. That is until Lena meets Alex, a boy from the world beyond society--the Wilds. Alex opens Lena's eyes to a different worldview, and suddenly she realizes that love not be such a bad thing.

Positive Comments:

I found Lena easy to relate to. She's the average, everyday girl who starts out a coward and develops courage gradually. These types of characters are typical in YA--blank slates that every teen can connect to. Fortunately, though, Lena has enough of a painful back story to keep her from being boring. She's not a brilliant character, but she gets the reader into the story, so she worked for me.

The story itself is about love--falling in love by accident, staying in love by choice, fighting for love when all seems hopeless, and finally the pain of the threat of losing love. Alex is the focus of Lena's love, and like Lena, he's a pretty blank slate. Alex is less important as a character than he is as a symbol. He symbolizes Lena's awakening; he helps her to embrace emotion, and eventually makes her want to break away. I like that this novel touched on the pain, unbalance, and frustration that comes with falling in love. I like that it admits that there's a darker side to feelings, even as it argues that they are necessary.

Critical Comments:

The emotions that Lena experiences are melodramatic. This is necessary for the plot to work, but it also had me rolling my eyes a time or too. I had a few flashback's to Bella in New Moon jumping off a freaking cliff over "love". Thank God this book never gets that bad, but it had me worried a time or too.

While I'm on that train of thought, I also have to say that this book seemed to be following a checklist of what infatuated teenagers do, according to YA novels: Read sappy poetry? CHECK! Lament the sorrowful beauty that is Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet? CHECK! Dance spontaneously and awkwardly? CHECK! Lay around in a garden or meadow, talking for hours? CHECK CHECK! Seriously, YA authors: I have been a teenager in love. That's not what they do. Or at least, that's not what all of them do. I don't even like poetry. And Romeo and Juliet is not very romantic. Come up with some new material, please.

This book comes across like a prologue to a much larger and more epic story. It sets up a lot of really interesting things--The Wilds, Invalids, regulators, resistors, the procedure itself--that it doesn't actually explore. As a result, this is a book with a slow pace and not much action. I get the feeling that the action was saved for the sequels. 

So, my final verdict on this book is that it's worth reading if you're a fan of YA romance. If you're looking for an exciting dystopian with lots of action, look elsewhere. I do plan to keep up with this series as future books come out, so we'll see if it improves. 3.5 stars