Title: Delirium
Author: Lauren Oliver
Publisher: HarperTeen
Pub. Date: 2.1.2011
Genre: Dystopian YA
Keywords: Love, Disease, Control, Cure, Secrets, Family, Loss
Pages: 441
Description (from Goodreads):
Before scientists found the cure, people thought love was a good thing. They didn’t understand that once love -- the deliria -- blooms in your blood, there is no escaping its hold. Things are different now. Scientists are able to eradicate love, and the governments demands that all citizens receive the cure upon turning eighteen. Lena Holoway has always looked forward to the day when she’ll be cured. A life without love is a life without pain: safe, measured, predictable, and happy.
But with ninety-five days left until her treatment, Lena does the unthinkable: She falls in love.
Lauren Oliver captured my bookish heart with BEFORE I FALL, and, with DELIRIUM, she's proven that she's more than a one hit wonder and fully capable of slipping from one genre to another without missing a beat.
There's something about Oliver's books that pulls me in and makes them near impossible to put down. The writing and plots are always fantastic, but I think it's the characters and their emotion that I find so alluring. There's so much passion in these books, particularly DELIRIUM. There's passion in the carnal sense - the romance is gorgeous - but Lena also possesses a passion for life and love that will speak to any reader.
In DELIRIUM, curing deliria, or love, isn't limited to just romantic love, it includes all love. The love between siblings, between a parent and child, and for life itself... What a terribly lonely world Lena is trapped in. There are times when I think that it would be much easier to not deal with the pain of love, but, after exploring Lena's world, I don't think the benefits of escaping love would ever outweigh the costs. If nothing else, DELIRIUM reminds readers just how lucky they are to know and experience love... even with the heartbreak and pain that travels beside it.
Somewhat unsurprisingly, Oliver leaves us hanging at DELIRIUM's close and, at least in my case, guarantees that readers will be scrambling to get their hands on the next installment.
Review copy provided by publisher.
