Starred Review for Kirkus Reviews (Thu Apr 28 00:00:00 CDT 2022)

Fraught with high-stakes action and gripping emotion, the final chapters of Lena Haloway's journey will have readers breathlessly turning the pages. But it is not Lena's story alone this time around. Her story alternates with that of Hana, Lena's "cured" best friend, lending depth and intrigue to the novel through the latter's firsthand account of life in a world vaccinated against the destructive powers of love. Hana struggles to come to terms with both her role in Lena's disappearance and her own upcoming marriage to a powerful and increasingly frightening young man. Having fled to the Wilds with a band of resistance fighters that includes the only two men she's ever loved, Lena is faced with struggles of her own. Now that the government can no longer deny the existence of the Invalids, revolution is inevitable, and Lena must reconcile her passion for the rebel cause with her deeply conflicted heart if she hopes to survive. A soldier, a lover, a cousin and a friend, Lena is a rich and achingly human heroine whose strength and vulnerability will earn her a permanent place in readers' hearts. Before starting, readers should turn off their cellphones and wipe their schedules clean, because once they open the book, they won't be able to stop. A dystopian tour de force. (Dystopian romance. 14 & up)

ALA Booklist

Following Delirium (2011) and Pandemonium (2012), this trilogy ender changes things up by splitting the narrative into two first-person perspectives: Lena, who continues to fight for freedom with the Invalids in the Wilds, and Hana, Lena's old best friend, who was cured of amor deliria nervosa (aka love) and is closing in on her arranged marriage to the city's rotten new mayor. Lena's story grinds through the motions a bit, with a somewhat forced love triangle (or square?) alternating with various resistance maneuvers starring our band of scrappy heroes. Hana's story line, though, is a winner, bringing back to the fore what was so inspired about the first volume e idea that longing is in itself something important to long for. This is one of the premier preoccupations of paranormal romance, and no one has distilled it as cannily as Oliver. The happy/angry, wealthy/poor balance of both plotlines is satisfying, as is their final collision. And is there a theme more perfect for YA readers than choosing what you want from life rather than being told what to do? HIGH-DEMAND BACKSTORY: This hugely successful trilogy should go out with a sizable bang, including advertising, appearances, a mobile campaign, and plenty of good old-fashioned chatter.

Horn Book

In the final book in the trilogy (Delirium; Pandemonium), Lena and her friends make the dangerous trek north to the Wilds. Back in Portland, Hana prepares for her wedding in the polished but empty society of the "cured." Tension builds as Oliver drives the two narratives inexorably toward both the climactic battle and a dramatic meeting of the two girls.

Kirkus Reviews (Fri Oct 04 00:00:00 CDT 2024)

Fraught with high-stakes action and gripping emotion, the final chapters of Lena Haloway's journey will have readers breathlessly turning the pages. But it is not Lena's story alone this time around. Her story alternates with that of Hana, Lena's "cured" best friend, lending depth and intrigue to the novel through the latter's firsthand account of life in a world vaccinated against the destructive powers of love. Hana struggles to come to terms with both her role in Lena's disappearance and her own upcoming marriage to a powerful and increasingly frightening young man. Having fled to the Wilds with a band of resistance fighters that includes the only two men she's ever loved, Lena is faced with struggles of her own. Now that the government can no longer deny the existence of the Invalids, revolution is inevitable, and Lena must reconcile her passion for the rebel cause with her deeply conflicted heart if she hopes to survive. A soldier, a lover, a cousin and a friend, Lena is a rich and achingly human heroine whose strength and vulnerability will earn her a permanent place in readers' hearts. Before starting, readers should turn off their cellphones and wipe their schedules clean, because once they open the book, they won't be able to stop. A dystopian tour de force. (Dystopian romance. 14 & up)

School Library Journal

Gr 8 Up-The tragedy and inhumanity of the Terez&7;n ghetto come to life in this powerful collection. The vivid poems, all but one written by fictional inmates, their Nazi oppressors, and local residents, reverberate with suffering, fear, resignation, despair, courage, and unspeakable brutality. In 1941 the ghetto was created as a collection and transport camp for Jews and was later touted as an arts facility to fool the Red Cross inspectors into believing that this was a benign setting to nurture artistic expression. In the one found poem, Valter Eisinger/11956 asks his wife to find another companion if he were to be killed. He died in Buchenwald in 1945. Children's fears of separation and the indignities of daily life spent in filthy and unhealthy conditions cry out from these sensitively written poems, which are given depth and veracity by Janezcko's research. There are even glimpses of suppressed compassion toward the inmates felt by the Nazis. Illustrations discovered after the war and done by actual inmates are interspersed with the poetry. Some are chilling renditions of the horrific prison life while others recall aspects of the life left behind. The faces in one illustration seem to scream out in terror, reminiscent of The Scream by Edvard Munch. An afterword, author's notes, translations of foreign words, an extensive bibliography, and a list of websites are appended. Reading this along with Hana Volavkova's I Never Saw Another Butterfly: Children's Drawings and Poems from the Terez&7;n Concentration Camp (Schocken, 1978) creates an in-depth picture of the perversity of the Nazi's Final Solution. Renee Steinberg, formerly at Fieldstone Middle School, Montvale, NJ