Release Date: March 5, 2013
Pages: 352
Rating: 💜💜💜💜
Buy it: Amazon | Book Depository
'The old Lena is dead', I say, and then push past him. Each step is more difficult than the last; the heaviness fills me and turns my limbs to stone.
You must hurt, or be hurt.
Lena can build the walls, but what if there's no one left to take them down?
I'll leave a link to Goodreads here because honestly that synopsis tells you nothing.
I really liked this book; I was actually surprised that I liked it so much. After hearing so many negative reviews about this book and the ending I wasn't expecting to like this book at all but somehow I did.
At first I was a little upset with the dual perspective between Lena and Hana but as the book progressed I actually really enjoyed it. I always love when you get to see how one character's choices affect another character so this was perfect for me. It was also nice to see how much Hana had changed and grown as a character since the first book, and how she felt about Lena escaping.
The writing style was just as beautiful as the first two books; Lauren Oliver always manages to place me in any situation her characters are going through. It did feel a little rushed at the end, when there was a large amount of action going on, and I would have liked a bit more clarity about what was going on. However it was fun to see how she made the two perspectives overlap and interact; although it was slightly infuriating at times!
I was a little upset about how open-ended this book was but apart from that I really enjoyed it! Obviously you would have to read the first two books in the series before this one but I would suggest you read this if you want to read a dystopian romance.
I'm going to get into spoilery details below, so if you haven't read this book click away now!
*Spoiler full review*
For me Julian was endgame. I know that Alex was amazing in the first book but then he was completely absent in the second book and made Lena's life miserable in the third book. Julian stayed the same from when he first ran away with Lena to the very last page in this book, but obviously Lena picked Alex instead.
However this book isn't just about romance so I'll comment on some of the other things in this book.
Lena was...different. I don't know. There were times when she was an incredible fighter who would die to save her friends and then there were times where she would leave a girl to die because she was jealous. I was really upset with this development because she had grown so much as character in the last book and now it was all crashing down around her.
I loved Hana's perspective and character in general. She was forced to go against everything she'd been taught to believe in because her operation went wrong (I assume, I don't think it was ever clarified) and then started to fight the system from the inside out. Also I'm not too sure how old she is (17 or 18) but she has to go through a lot by herself. She uncovers that entire mystery about her abusive husband's ex-wife by herself without anyone suspecting her and then ends up blowing her husband up, which is pretty freaking awesome. I actually think she became my favourite character of the entire series because of how awesome she is in this book.
It was also nice that we got to see a little more about how the poor and rich interact. When Hana went to visit Lena's family it was obvious that nobody trusted her because she was rich. Even Lena's sister didn't trust her and had to be worn down before she eventually let Hana help her. And because Hana's husband was Mayor we got to see the political side of this world as well and just how much power the leaders have.
It was a well-written and strong conclusion to one of my favourite series I've read this year. My main problem with this book was how many loose-ends there were, but I didn't dislike this ending either. This book gave off a lot of strong messages that I feel will stick with me for a while.
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