Delirium (Delirium, #1) in Ultimate Popsugar Reading Challenge

Jan 05, 2013 Nadine in NY Jones rated it it was amazing

Shelves: dystopian-and-post-apocalyptic, young-adult

from the NPR poll of best young adult fiction

Love is the drug, got a hook in me
Oh oh catch that buzz
Love is the drug Im thinking of
Oh oh can't you see
Love is the drug for me

... can't help thinking of the old Roxy Music song when I read this ...

I stayed up late to finish this, and I'm sorry I did that, because now I'm finished. No more book :-(

I wasn't expecting to like this book as much as I did. It sounds so contrived. To my surprise, this was the most believable dystopian I've read! (And from the NPR poll of best young adult fiction

Love is the drug, got a hook in me
Oh oh catch that buzz
Love is the drug Im thinking of
Oh oh can't you see
Love is the drug for me

... can't help thinking of the old Roxy Music song when I read this ...

I stayed up late to finish this, and I'm sorry I did that, because now I'm finished. No more book :-(

I wasn't expecting to like this book as much as I did. It sounds so contrived. To my surprise, this was the most believable dystopian I've read! (And I've been reading a lot of dystopians lately!) Yes, World War Z: An Oral History of the Zombie War was very realistic, but, you know, zombies ... not so believable. And books like Unwind and Ashfall are just too extreme to feel believable. But this one, this one, I could really feel it. I thought this was going to be all angsty teen romancey, but it's not. Yes, there is romance (how could there not be, in a book about love being illegal???), but it's not the light fluffy angsty romance I was expecting. Yeah, okay, it's angsty, but not light and fluffy. This book was so POIGNANT. It's about the insecurities that we all feel as teens: I'm not pretty enough, I'm not special enough, I don't know what I want from my life, am I doing the right thing, childhood is so boring and yet so short ...

Synopsis in brief: A generation ago, the US government developed a brain surgery procedure a bit like a lobotomy, to remove feelings of love, as well as just about all other emotions. It seems to lead to rather subpar parenting, and enforcement is constant, so I can't see how this society will be sustainable, and I'm interested to see where Oliver goes with this in the series. Naturally, our heroine, Lena, falls in love. With Alex. Who seems to be just about the perfect guy ever! His hair is like autumn leaves in the sun, and always the glint of a smile in his eyes, and he really REALLY likes Lena. But ... love is illegal ...

I didn't like the ending though. It had better be satisfactorily resolved in Pandemonium ...more

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Jul 27, 2011 Ashley rated it really liked it · review of another edition

This was an enjoyable twist on the dystopian genre. The story isnt spectacular but there is a lyricism in Oliver's writing that I believe saves the story somewhat. The concept of a future world in which love is considered a disease to be avoided and emotions are meant to be subdued sounds just crazy enough to keep you interested and wondering what this means for the world at large. ...more

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