Delirium (Delirium #1)

BEST BOOK EVER.

"I love you. Remember. They cannot take it."

Probably among the most powerful last line of a book I have read. It perfectly sums up the theme of Delirium and everything that Lena has learned throughout the story.

I am still having trouble believing how much I loved Delirium! I have always enjoyed dystopian novels, comparing them to our own society today to see how easy it would become for us to become them. And Delirium is no different. While the concept seems so unbelievable, and impossible to happen to us, the way the society is portrayed, and how the people act made me realize it is somewhat plausible, while none of it is in danger of happening today, I could see how it could happen, which to me makes the world come to life.

Before reading Delirium, I never really thought about how integrated love is in our society. So many songs are about love, books about love, poems about love, even a whole day dedicated to love!(ironically the day I started reading Delirium). But as I read it I found anything about love standing out more and more, even just generally saying "I love you" to my family, or hugging my friends goodbye. I cannot imagine a world without love, or where it is thought of as evil. But Lauren Oliver has created a believable world where love is a thing to be feared, and on certain levels, it almost makes sense. Which was the most astonishing thing to me, at times the way it was described and the effects of it did seem like a bad thing that should be eradicated. But after building up our belief that perhaps in an alternate universe love was a bad thing. Then, the author went right ahead and broke down those notions, destroying them so utterly I couldn't believe I had ever thought that maybe it was a somewhat understandable thing. It was clear that love had been twisted into an unrecognizable thing in Lena's society, something untrue and terrible. But slowly she discovered the truth about love, and why it was such an important thing to have, to hold on to, and to die for.

Another thing I thought was so interesting about it, was the way they twisted Christianity. A religion based on a relationship of love, was created into a way to keep people believing love was evil. Whenever I came across "Bible passages" or "Bible stories" I found myself astonished at how twisted they were. Even the Creation story and heaven were recreated so as to agree with the assumption that love was evil.

Once again I noticed the destruction of love(no duh!), language and history used to keep the people ignorant. I really enjoyed reading the passages at the beginning of chapters that gave perfect examples of them. From falsifying history and what life was like, to deliberately censoring information and outright lying.

Oh, and just a brief note on the characters. I loved Alex! He is so much better than Peeta(sorry Peeta! You're still awesome, just beaten by Alex!) I just loved his whole personality, he was funny, sweet, and smart, and just his whole outlook on life was great(plus he was cute) I also loved Lena(though I kept chuckling at the thought she has the same name as the main love interesting in Beautiful Creatures), it was interesting to watch her chance and grow and discover the truth. Hana was great as well, though she annoyed me at parts for the most part I think she was a perfect friend for Lena....though now I feel bad for thinking for a moment that she turned Lena in to the regulators. Woops....And Gracie! I think she is my favorite barely mentioned character ever! She is so cute and sweet and a brave hero too!

I really liked that this was set in the future but the tech was the same as now. This was a very intresting book and I really enjoyed learning the rules of the world Lena lives in. Oliver really captured the feelings in this book perfectly. In a world where Love is deadly, Lena learns that it is also the only thing worth living for.

This is one of my earlier reviews which is why it's so small!

I had very high hopes for Delirium, having read on a number of blogs that it was pretty much the most fantasmagorical book of the year. These kinds of expectations often wreak havoc on my reading experience, because the book just cannot live up to the hype. Delirium largely did.

The concept of this dystopia is endlessly fascinating, unlike any of the dystopias I have read before. Certainly, there are others where love is denied and not welcomed by the society (Brave New World, for example), but I have not read one where love was the main issue. The society's documents, which open every section (as is done in Unwind), were very interesting, especially the slightly altered Bible quotes. Very clever.

Dear reader, you may have already gathered that I really do not like Romeo and Juliet, but here it is again, weaved throughout the story. The initial reference was pretty hilarious though; in this world, they did actually allow the play to be read (unlike Shakespeare's love poems), because it was a perfect example of the dangers of love. Even the young saw it not as romantic, but as a horror story. Ha!

The beginning of this novel actually reminded me, oddly enough, of Footloose. The kids, who have not been treated for the love disease, are not allowed to have any fun. They have early curfews, boys and girls aren't allowed to mingle, and loud music and dancing are forbidden. As expected, many kids will find a way to do forbidden things, nor appreciating their parents stifling them. Of course, the comparison ends somewhere: Regulators armed with guns are not quite the same as John Lithgow armed with a Bible.

The only downside to Delirium was that much of the plot was pretty predictable. Still, I enjoyed the writing, the concept and the characters. I eagerly await book two! Highly recommended!

I loved it. It was perfect. So exciting.

The simplest way to tell you what I thought of it is to assure you that I'll be reading the sequel. I will be reading it, come hell or high water. The end left me hanging, as the first of a trilogy ought.

I also like love stories. I would like to think I am more academic than that, but the truth is that a good love story is, in my opinion, the best of all stories. The trouble is that they're so rare. Good ones, I mean. Delirium is a novel unabashedly about love, and the absence of love, and the consequences of that absence, and what it looks like to find love in a setting otherwise literally devoid of it. And not just romantic love, but the love of a mother for her daughter, the love between sisters and friends... all of it.

Lena is a girl who has waited eagerly for the procedure for years, the procedure everyone gets at the age of eighteen that will take away her ability to feel love. She has been looking forward to this because the absence of love will also mean the absence of fear and the absence of pain. She has been looking forward to this because the one thing she wants more than anything is to finally be just like everyone else.

What she does not expect is that love will find her before her eighteenth birthday. That she might meet the one person who can show her how ugly, bereft, and oppressive the world she lives in truly is. When she does meet him, the walls she's built around her heart are quickly pulled down, and the question of losing her love for the sake of fitting in becomes absurd. The consequences, however, will mean the end of all she's known. She is willing to take the risk, because she loves. But she may not survive.*

Some of the wonderful things about this book: Lauren Oliver has taken a rather extreme plot line and turned it into something plausible, readable, and natural. Nothing about Lena's world seems unlikely. Every outlandish element of this loveless society has its root in something familiar - whether it be our natural fears, our mobbish tendencies, or our insecurities. And the characters are believable, too. Nothing is unreal. It's also a storyline I would have liked to have written, which is to say that it's a world I would like to sit in longer, and these are characters I want to know better.

Having said that, I did not at first like Lena much. I did not buy her eagerness for the procedure - and not because the procedure seems so obviously horrible to anyone outside the system. It didn't seem believable because of her character and her history. Oddly enough, as she gradually changed her mind about the procedure, gradually came to realize that the society she had so long supported with all her heart and mind was at its roots corrupt and dehumanizing, I started to believe where she'd come from.

In the same on-the-fence sort of way, I loved Lauren Oliver's writing, her very human descriptions, the way she never hesitated to sit in a single, precious observation for as long as it was necessary. I also found myself skimming almost full pages of description that were just a bit more florid or tangential than the present moment of the story called for. In other words, it was occasionally a bit wordy.

But it was also beautiful, and personable, and fearful all at the same time. I have high hopes for the next book. And I hope very much that the third will follow fast behind.


*Of course she will survive. Who are we kidding.

Do I recommend it? Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes!!!!!

Delirium is an absolutely FANTASTIC book that, while I was rating it, I would have given it a 10 out of 5!!!!! lol.

Delirium is set in the future, when love is considered a disease. When people turn 18, or as close as possible to their 18th birthday, they become cured for the "delirium nervosa" aka love. Lena is an unremarkable 17-year-old who can't wait for her operation. She counts down the days until she can be cured. She is constantly afraid of the disease that could be swirling around her veins and take control of her. And everything would probably have gone to plan, she would have been cured and paired up with a man who she will never love, have unremarkable dinners on unremarkable days. But everything changed on her evaluation day, the day when the judges will decide who she will be paired up with. Suddenly, a stampede of cows comes charging in, ruining everything. To make matters worse, she saw a BOY that dared to WINK at her.

Lena's world starts falling apart. Her best friend Hana starts going to illegal parties after curfew that are COED, and wants Lena to join her. Not wanting to prove Hana's point that she is weak, Lena starts sneaking out after curfew too. To make matters worse, she seems to keep the same boy from the evaluation everywhere, and she starts to find a strange attraction to him. At first, Lena is terrified. She is infected with deliria,and she will soon die. At least, thats what she thinks. With Alex's help, Lena starts to see the true meaning of love, and all the lies her entire world has been built on.

But what will happen once the regulators find out, as they are bound to at some point? What will happen when Lena has to take the cure, and will eventually forget about Alex? I'm not going to tell you. You want to find out, read the book. It will be worth your while!

An AMAZING book about finding out our true selves inside, and an insight on an epic world where love is something to be ashamed of, something that could get you executed.

"Before scientists found the cure, people thought love was a good thing."

Once you fall in love, you've caught the disease. You think differently, you act differently, and nothing is right. Luckily, once you turn eighteen, you can receive the cure. You'll live a perfectly predictable, normal life. Before eighteen, you're on your own. The cure can't work on someone that young, the side effects could be devastating.

At first, Lena Holoway couldn't wait until the day she'd finally receive the cure to "Amor Deliria Nervosa". But after encountering a few out-of-the-ordinary circumstances, she starts to think differently.

Lauren Oliver created such a unique and well-written story. Delirium had me hooked from the first page. I wanted to learn more about Lena's society; how it functions, what the people are like, and how life can go on without love. I felt like the whole thing could actually happen. Love as a disease? at first you'd think "no way". But with the explanations given in the handbook, it's plausible, and coming up with the idea for it just shows Lauren Oliver's creativity.

I love Lena. She's so sweet and seemingly oblivious to what love really is. In the beginning her thought process and how she considers the strong emotion are awesome. When she figures it out.. well, I'll let you see what happens.

I can never say enough how much I love books like this- set in the future with an alternate way of life, completely different from our own. A creative mind is needed to make something unique and outside the box, and Delirium fits this completely.
5/5 stars. Definitely.

In this book, love is a diease, there is only one cure, to have an operation that gets rid of a part of your brain that makes you feel emotion. In a few months, Lena will have her operation and her life will be endlessly better. She wants to be cured so badly, until she meets Alex. An invalid living among the cured, Lena is intrested to such an extent that she is afraid that she may be infected. Lena falls in love with Alex and realises that love is not a diease but a thing so powerful that it will change her life forever.

Full of lies and secerts, sacrifice and love. This book will make you think twice about what love really is. I am so reading the next book!