Book review: Requiem

Requiem (Delirium #3) by Lauren Oliver

Description from Goodreads (below) can be found here along with other reviews. As this is a sequel, my review will by nature include spoilers for the first two books. Check out my review for the first book and the second book. No spoilers for the third book though!

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.

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.

Requiem is the third and final installment in the Delirium series. The second left with a pretty decent cliffhanger: Lena discovered that Alex, her first love who she thought died helping her escape to the wilds, was alive. In fact, he was in front of her and her new romantic interest, Julian.

With that plot twist, I guess I shouldn't have been surprised that much of this book was one big fat love triangle. It was somewhat disappointing that this took up SO MUCH of the book, but then again -- when the story is about a world that has tried to eradicate love, of course you're going to focus on the love story!

For the first time in the series, Requiem lets us see the world from another character's perspective -- Hana, who has now been cured. I really, really liked this. I liked seeing through the eyes of a cured person -- there was less emotion, but definitely not less fear, and I think that really made the evilness of the cure and the awfulness of society that much clearer.

We also get to check in with Lena's family a bit and see what affect her disappearance had on them. I thought that was another great view into the society of the cure.

Requiem has gotten a lot of criticism from fans because it doesn't wrap up cleanly -- we don't know what's going to happen next at all. But I think it's a (mostly) fair ending. 

Have any of you read Requiem? Did you hate the ending? I'd love to hear what you thought! Be careful of spoilers in the comments, please!

Book review: The House of Mirth

The House of Mirth by Edith Wharton

Description from Goodreads (below) can be found here along with other reviews.

First published in 1905, The House of Mirth shocked the New York society it so deftly chronicles, portraying the moral, social, and economic restraints on a woman who dared to claim the privileges of marriage without assuming the responsibilities. Lily Bart, beautiful, witty, and sophisticated, is accepted by "old money" and courted by the growing tribe of nouveaux riches. But as she nears 30, her foothold becomes precarious; a poor girl with expensive tastes, she needs a husband to preserve her social standing and to maintain her life in the luxury she has come to expect. While many have sought her, something—fastidiousness or integrity—prevents her from making a "suitable" match.

To me, this book was a mix of Jane Austen and Mean Girls. Really. Even though each of these three things (Jane Austen's writing, the book's writing, and Mean Girls) happened with a hundred years almost between each.

The House of Mirth reminds me of Austen's book Emma in a couple ways: one, both are about society -- high society of the time, to be specific, and about making appropriate matches, according to status, mostly. Secondly, because I'm not sure the main character is entirely likeable. With Emma, I know that Austen did this on purpose. With Lily, the main character in  The House of Mirth, I'm not sure.

Lily is a girl with expensive taste. She likes to spend time with folks with much more money than she has, she spends money she doesn't have, and she gets herself into sticky situations with other people's husbands. She is also VERY aware of her own attractiveness and is very manipulative of the effect her beauty and charm have on people. Just when I was getting to like her, she'd talk about how beautiful she was again, and there it went.

And then there's the Mean Girls part. Like I said, Lily gets herself into a couple tricky situations with other people's husbands. Through the repercussions of these incidents, we see the many sides of society life: the cheating, the manipulation, and where you go when you fall from grace.

The House of Mirth shows the many sides of society life in the early 20th century -- the good, the bad and the ugly. It was a bit of a slow read, as many society books are (more visiting with other people and descriptions of parties than actual action) but super fascinating -- and it took turns I was not expecting. I gave it four stars on Goodreads! Thank you to Pat's dad for the book!!

Have any of you read The House of Mirth or books like it? I love to read books like this now and then!

Book review: Before I Fall

Before I Fall by Lauren Oliver

Description from Goodreads (below) can be found here along with other reviews. Linking up with Blonde... Undercover Blonde for Book Club Friday.

What if you only had one day to live? What would you do? Who would you kiss? And how far would you go to save your own life?

Samantha Kingston has it all: looks, popularity, the perfect boyfriend. Friday, February 12, should be just another day in her charmed life. Instead, it turns out to be her last.

The catch: Samantha still wakes up the next morning. Living the last day of her life seven times during one miraculous week, she will untangle the mystery surrounding her death--and discover the true value of everything she is in danger of losing.
I think if you go into this book knowing NOTHING about it -- you will not make it through. Go back up and read that second paragraph of the description again. Looks, popularity, the perfect boyfriend -- these features are important to characters in a lot of young adult books, but at the beginning of this book, it is ALL Sam cares about. And it makes her a mean, mean girl.

Had I not known the premise of the book and guessed a little bit of what it would entail, I wouldn't have made it through the first chapter because Sam does not start out likeable at all. And neither are her friends. They're not sympathetic, their shallow and vain, and they are mean.

But that ended up being one of the things I loved about this book.

Before I Fall does not advocate being a mean or shallow person. It doesn't glamorize that life -- it shows the gritty truth of it -- why the girls behave the way they do, what their thought process is, how they got to be like that. It humanizes the mean girls in a way I've never seen any other book do, but still shows that their behavior is wrong. In the end, I couldn't hate the mean girls at all -- I loved them for their good qualities. Which is so like real life.

I gave this book four stars. Loved it. Which I should have known I would, since it's the same author as Delirium, which I loved. It's got a few mature scenes (parties, drugs, lots of talk about sex) but I think it's great for high school girls who are probably going through all of the same things as these girls. Well. Maybe not living the same day over and over. But all the rest. :)

Have any of you read Before I Fall? What did you think? 

Book review: Naked

Naked by David Sedaris

Description from Goodreads (below) can be found here along with other reviews. Linking up with Blonde... Undercover Blonde for Book Club Friday.

Welcome to the hilarious, strange, elegiac, outrageous world of David Sedaris. In Naked, Sedaris turns the mania for memoir on its ear, mining the exceedingly rich terrain of his life, his family, and his unique worldview-a sensibility at once take-no-prisoners sharp and deeply charitable. A tart-tongued mother does dead-on imitations of her young son's nervous tics, to the great amusement of his teachers; a stint of Kerouackian wandering is undertaken (of course!) with a quadriplegic companion; a family gathers for a wedding in the face of imminent death. Through it all is Sedaris's unmistakable voice, without doubt one of the freshest in American writing.

I've had several friends who were HUGE David Sedaris fans. I'd never really given him too much of a shot, but when I started listening to This American Life, I started hearing more and more from him -- he's a regular contributor. So I got his boxed set of audio books from the library -- I think there's four? -- and this is the first one I listened to.

Naked is a collection of true short stories or mini-memoirs, I guess -- stories about his life. 

Some of them I really loved -- one in particular about his father's constant warnings of men who lost a limb skateboarding or chopped off their thumbs chopping up vegetables reminded me of conversations with my own parents. 

Some of them were a little obscene or graphic and I was glad I was listening alone. Nothing too gory -- David as a child found a book about an incestuous family, for example. That plot line had a few interesting quotes...

Overall I enjoyed Naked. I laughed more than I cringed, for sure, and soldiered on to his next book, which is obviously a good sign. I gave it three stars on Goodreads.

Are any of you familiar with David Sedaris? One of his books, which unfortunately isn't in the boxed set, is about when he was a Christmas Elf in a department store -- can't wait to read that one!

Book review: Hawksong

Hawksong by Amelia Atwater-Rhodes

Description from Goodreads (below) can be found here along with other reviews. Linking up with Blonde... Undercover Blonde for Book Club Friday.

DANICA SHARDAE IS an avian shapeshifter, and the golden hawk’s form in which she takes to the sky is as natural to her as the human one that graces her on land. The only thing more familiar to her is war: It has raged between her people and the serpiente for so long, no one can remember how the fighting began. As heir to the avian throne, she’ll do anything in her power to stop this war—even accept Zane Cobriana, the terrifying leader of her kind’s greatest enemy, as her pair bond and make the two royal families one.

Trust. It is all Zane asks of Danica—and all they ask of their people—but it may be more than she can give.

I loved Hawksong from the start. From page one, you're right in the mind and world of Danica -- an avian shapeshifter, heir to the throne in a world torn by war. Danica is to inherit the throne soon and simply can't stand the war anymore. When a member of the enemy's royal family -- a shapeshifter who turns into a cobra -- shows up and pleads for movement to create peace, Danica embarks on a journey toward peace.

The greatest strength of this story is the incredible world building. You will be enamored with Danica and Zane's world. It was one of those books that I listened to every minute I could, even if it was just for a minute, and I couldn't wait to get back to it when I put it down.

There is a bit of action here and there, but a lot of the plot line is emotional. My two complaints about the book are that it was a bit predictable -- I bet you can already guess some things that will happen -- and that the plot lines were rushed at the end -- there was a loooot of buildup for a couple climaxes that were wrapped up all in the final pages. Poof, done.

Still, I really enjoyed this book and have already read the sequel! I have the third of the series on hold at the library now. I gave Hawksong four stars on Goodreads.

Have any of read Hawksong? What did you think?