Delirium (Delirium, #1) in CSS 8.3 and 8.4

Nov 17, 2013 Stephanie rated it it was amazing

Delirium:
In Lena Haloway’s dystopian society, love is dangerous and forbidden. According to the government, “amora deliria nervosa”, aka love, is a lethal disease that takes hold of a person, gets into their blood, and renders them emotionally and physically useless. According to The Safety, Health, and Happiness Handbook (often called The Book of Shhh) this operation is necessary to keep a person from submitting to dangerous symptoms like loss of focus, irrational decision-making, sweaty palms Delirium:
In Lena Haloway’s dystopian society, love is dangerous and forbidden. According to the government, “amora deliria nervosa”, aka love, is a lethal disease that takes hold of a person, gets into their blood, and renders them emotionally and physically useless. According to The Safety, Health, and Happiness Handbook (often called The Book of Shhh) this operation is necessary to keep a person from submitting to dangerous symptoms like loss of focus, irrational decision-making, sweaty palms, and difficulty in breathing. Now scientists have found a cure. By age 18 every citizen must undergo an invasive operation to eradicate the feelings of love. The borders of America have been closed and society is rid of the scourge of madness, violence and passion that love brings. Panic sets in after Lena meets Alex and she finds herself manifesting all the symptoms of love. While in turmoil about her new emotions, Lena discovers that Alex lives outside the fenced borders of her city and realizes if they are caught together, they could be put to death.
As she begins to question the motives of her society and family, Lena unearths deeply hidden secrets, which will lead both her and Alex to come up with a dangerous and risky plan for escape. In this story, Lauren Oliver tells the story of a girl who believes that love is to be feared, until she meets a boy who changes her mind and her life.

Delirium is an original, heart pounding, exciting, and suspenseful read. The premise of the story is unusual and terrifying. The danger and secrecy that surrounds the forbidden romance between Lena and Alex gives the story tension and an underlying current of excitement. Lauren Oliver is a skillful writer who has an ability to create an emotional quality to her story with words. For example, when Lena is debating upon what she’s been raised to believe about love with what she feels for Alex she describes it as , “Love: a single word, a wispy thing, a word no bigger or longer than an edge. That’s what it is: an edge; a razor. (Delirium, 301). The whole world in the book was amazing, and so imaginative it's untrue. A place without love? Who else has thought of that, who else has thought to use love as a disease? "The deadliest of all deadly things: It kills you both when you have it when you don't." No book I've ever read has spoken of love like that. It was so new, so unusual, so horrible, and so real. The pace is perfect, the suspense grew with every chapter, and I literally sped through the book at a racecar speed.

Novels’ goals are for the reader to feel something, and Lauren’s novel, certainly achieves that. In my experience, I felt a lot of emotions at one time whenever I picked up this book. It really put me through an emotional roller coaster. Have you ever read a book so beautiful it physically hurts? A book that has you laughing one moment, crying the next? A book that makes you feel every single emotion the character does? That’s how I felt while I was reading Delirium. As I read, I found my eyes were prickling with tears, even as I felt like smiling at little thing in the plot. It left me with an ache, a longing, and a need for the next in the series. I had to know what happened, and that is why I couldn’t help myself but finish the trilogy. I'm not sure how to explain everything Delirium made me feel. All I can say is that all the emotions Lena felt, I felt. And, more importantly, they all felt real, like they were my own.
There is nothing in this story that is predictable and I am repeatedly stunned by twists and confessions in the story. I loved the characterization of Lena and Alex and the description of Lena’s experiences as she comes to terms with feelings and emotions that she simply does not have words for. I raced through Delirium in a matter of days, feeling slightly lost whenever I had to put it down. Lauren Oliver has an amazing style of writing and is able to take the reader through a full range of emotional responses. It is safe to say that I felt devastated by the ending of the book and had certainly not expected to be put through the wringer again following some of the book’s more shocking turns.

The characters were absolutely unforgettable.
Ever since Lena was a young girl, the “Book of Shh” was drilled into her head, and she constantly heard she would be safe and there would b e no pain, and she longed for the day of her cure to come. Lena started out as one of the brainwashed zombies, following all the rules, counting down the days before she is cured, but her view on things were tainted by the disease, by love. Lena was also a weakling and was afraid of the truth, but in the end she woke up, and became a new person, strong and brave. I favoured Lena over other characters because Lena adapted to change and she grew as a character throughout the whole trilogy. Lena’s past was also something that drew me to that character. Lauren always had you wondering about her past, always searching for more. Lena’s past was like a shadow, it followed her, her whole life. The way Lena looks at everything was interesting as well. After all, in a world where 'love' is a killable offence; everything is completely different, and far more dangerous. Alex... I fell in love with him. Of all the characters, he was the one that really jumped out at me. And his past was even more fascinating than Lena's was – so much so that I found myself racing to find out more about him – about everyone. The love between him and Lena was stunning and pure: real. The bond between them was just incredible, and so beautiful. There love made you crave for you to have something like that one day.

I would absolutely recommend this book for anyone who yearns for a romantic, dystopian, page-turner. If you enjoyed divergent or the hunger games trilogies, you’re going to fall for Delirium. Delirium has the elements of a great dystopian novel; controlling government, forbidden love, and dangerous, life threatening decisions. The novel's sequence of events builds to a tense ending that leaves readers’ jaws dropped. This is one devastating but unforeseeable ending that will keep readers in suspense until the second book, Pandemonium. I definitely recommend putting this book on your “Have to Read” list. I rate this book 5 out of 5 stars.
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