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 government 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.
PREFACE:
Delirium was one of those books that I was interested in but didn't want to read. My reservations came from two facts about the book. The first is that it is a dystopian story, and while I've liked some dystopia, it's not the genre I crave. The second was that this story was centered on love, which to me meant romance, and that is also not something I crave, at least not as the main theme in a story. But eventually I made myself read it because I wouldn't really know until I did. What I expected was a sappy, chokingly-romantic story set in an imperfect future, and I expected to not like the book.
But I was wrong.
WRITING:
My first review of one of Lauren Oliver's works was
Before I Fall (my review
here), but I actually read
Delirium first. Both books share the kind of writing that pulls you in and sticks with you. It is figurative in a way most books aren't, but the writing captured the emotions of the characters and the uncertainty of the events without getting in the way of the story. I've said it before, but Oliver is a wonderful storyteller and despite my reservations about reading a book themed on love, she told this story well and without going overboard with the prose.
SETTING:
The world the main character, Lena, lives in, is one of those that seems perfect and pleasant, but it's not. I thought Oliver did well making everything in Lena's town seem clean and nice, then flipping the coin and showing exactly how imperfect things were. I would not want to live in Lena's time. It all felt very Stepford-like, which makes things both creepy and sad and dangerous for those who don't want to live that way.
CHARACTERS:
The jacket copy of this book tells you exactly what is going to happen: a girl who thinks love is a deadly disease is going to fall in love. Calamity ensues. So, I expected Lena to have all of those first-time-in-love feelings and to hear about it over and over again. That was one of the drawbacks - there is a lot of love talk, about how beautiful and wonderful and yada yada love is. It's true, of course, but the repetitiveness is not something I enjoy, even if Oliver did manage to make it pretty and not gag-inducing.
There were other things about Lena that I liked and disliked. I enjoyed her perspective because even though she fully believed in "the cure" and was ready for hers, you could still tell there was this doubt in her mind that she ignored until Alex, the love interest, showed up. That doubt was caused by her mom and what happened to her mom, and I liked that Lena dwelt on that and it affected how she lived. I also liked how she was unnerved by how the cured sometimes acted, again, playing on that doubt she tried to suppress.
I did not like how Lena waffled. She would do, say, or think something that made you fell that she was progressing and changing and becoming stronger, then she would get scared and go into damsel-in-distress mode. Those moments were not enjoyable. They made me want to hit Lena over the head with The Book of Shhh.
As for Alex, I liked him. He was definitely the most interesting character in the story. I thought he was a brave guy that took risks for what he believed in, and that is a quality I adore in characters. If he were in our world, he might be considered a little over-the-top with his romantic poetry quoting and such, but considering he was fighting against a system that outlawed such poetry as well as what the poems talked about, I could see how he might be interested in knowing it.
Most of the other characters didn't mean very much to the story, but I really liked Hana. I thought she was a good foil for Lena and I enjoyed their tumultuous relationship. I also really liked Grace and the events in the story made me afraid for her because you can tell that like Lena, she has doubts, even though she is pretty young.
DOWNSIDE:
Apart from the downsides I mentioned above, the other main downside was how slow the story was. I think it comes from this book is character oriented, dealing with everything Lena is going through emotionally and that takes time. It didn't make the book drag, per se, but it definitely felt like you'd waded through some deep water to get to the end.
COOL STUFF:
The first cool thing about this book was the excerpts from the fictional Book of Shhh, which instructs everyone in how to live in Lena's world. This was some fantastic world-building on Oliver's part, not just because the book existed, but because we get to know some of what it says. Sometimes it was funny, sometimes it was sad or a little scary. I especially liked when the excerpts showed how religious mantras or events were twisted or completely falsified and used as examples of why love is dangerous.
The second thing that I really enjoyed was the action. There isn't a lot of action in the book, but the parts where it pops up were really well done. I enjoyed being swept up in the frenzy of a raid or an escape and I kind of wish it made up more of the cake and not just the icing of the novel.
The third cool thing dovetails with the second, and that is the ending. It was a heart-pounding, exciting end that left so many questions. It made me excited and expectant for the next novel in the series,
Pandemonium.
The last thing that I found cool was a little mystery mixed in the meat of the novel. I hoped for the outcome that was eventually revealed but it wasn't something I expected to happen from the beginning. I'm interested to see how those at the center of it come back into play down the road.
VERDICT:
While the story took a while to get going and the main character was sometimes annoying, overall I was pleasantly surprised and enjoyed Delirium. Oliver's writing is fantastic and sweeps you into the story. There are characters to root for and some exciting parts that really get your heart pumping. If you at all like romance and/or dystopia, you will want to read this book.
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