all hearthfires & holocausts

2.5 stars.I'm not sure I know what to say about this one. While I was only mildly impressed with Delirium, and found Lena to be a weak and indecisive character, I was incredibly impressed with her development in Pandemonium. Lena grew into a strong, determined character, with a cause far greater than somewhat ordinary teenage love. In Requiem all the momentum built in Pandemonium was halted. Despite the all out war brewing between the Regulators and the Invalids, the main focus of the story was Lena's feelings for Alex and Julian--which changed every other chapter or so. I found Requiem to be incredibly flat and boring, even with the many fighting scenes. They all seemed recycled, and took a backseat to Lena's dithering about the two boys. And the ending? The nicest word I have for it is abrupt. All in all, a disappointing conclusion to a promising series.Lena spent the entire story thinking about Alex. How she felt about him. How he might feel for her. How he felt for someone else. Meanwhile, she's still stringing Julian along, one minute running into his arms, the next emasculating him in front of their entire group. It was obvious she didn't respect Julian, and was using him to make Alex jealous, or to make herself feel better when Alex shunned her.And despite having maybe two actual conversations in the entire book, neither of which what you might call nice, when Alex says he still loves her that's it? That's the end of the whole story? The happy ending? We don't even get to see what happens with Julian, if he lives or dies? What happens with the Resistance? Nope. Alex and Lena are back together, so obviously everything's gonna be fine.