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

Feb 02, 2012 jess rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: yaf, audiobook-d, 2012, ladyish

Yet another dystopian YAF book. I can't explain my fascination and I can't stop. I listened to the audiobook version of this, and Sarah Drew was an amazing reader. She really made the story special.

Sometime in the not-too-distant future, Love has been outright pathologized. Scientists have developed a procedure to cure all humans of love, thus creating very civilized, controlled population centers. In between the controlled, ordered cities are The Wilds, places where infected and uncured people Yet another dystopian YAF book. I can't explain my fascination and I can't stop. I listened to the audiobook version of this, and Sarah Drew was an amazing reader. She really made the story special.

Sometime in the not-too-distant future, Love has been outright pathologized. Scientists have developed a procedure to cure all humans of love, thus creating very civilized, controlled population centers. In between the controlled, ordered cities are The Wilds, places where infected and uncured people suffer all the misery that love brings (or so the government wants you to believe). In Portland, Maine, Lena is graduating from her all-girls high school and counting down the days until her procedure, when she can be safe and happy and cured for the rest of her life. But things go a little off-course for Lena, and she discovers more than she ever imagined about herself, her government's lies, and the possibilities of love.

This book isn't the most original story in the history of the world, but the telling is fresh and fascinating. Oliver's characters are lively and engaging. The teenage girls feel authentic, and the girl-girl friendship was so well-developed, it felt more important to me than the boy-girl love story. Even though this book is such a classic story, it felt self-aware about its referential tendencies, going so far as to namedrop Romeo & Juliet a couple times to make sure that we know that she knows that we know what she's doing.

My major complaint would be Lena's development as an active resister - it felt a little weird how quickly Lena became totally radicalized and focused on resistance near the end, when she had been so wishy-washy and passive about rebellion through the book. I felt like she should have been more radical earlier in the book, based on her experiences with her mom, Hana's rebellious behavior, and Alex's influence. That last paragraph seemed so disjointed and different from the Lena we knew even 3 pages before that. I think it is possible to have an authentic teen girl and an authentic narrative of resistance, I just don't think that this book really mastered Lena's development in that regard.

My second complaint is about how the author handled 'deviant' sexuality - there's one mention of gay people when Lena basically reflects on how gays were cured or gotten rid of. Lena and Hana kind of seemed to have some chemistry and I was really rooting for their friendship to evolve. It seems like if your main point is about freedom of attraction and self-expression, well, hello, the queers have kind of cornered the market on that and would probably bring a lot of interesting aspects to the story.... maybe Lena will stumble across a big ol' homo commune in the next book! Like the great-great-great-great grandchildren of womyn and radical faeries? My fingers are crossed!

Despite those two rants, I greatly enjoyed this book. I love Magdalena Holloway and I can't wait to read the next book. ...more

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Jun 14, 2010 Brandi rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: teen, favorites, random-reads-column, audiobooks, librandian-blog, 2011

8-24-11

Random Reads

Delirium
By Lauren Oliver

After centuries of allowing emotions to control the actions of society, the government has finally come up with a way to regulate the disease that causes outbreaks of unyielding feelings and blatant passion responsible for violence and wars. Everyone gets the procedure to remove the fatal illness, amor deliria nervosa, at the age of eighteen. Anyone who does not submit to the procedure may infect others with the highly contagious disease. Resisters are 8-24-11

Random Reads

Delirium
By Lauren Oliver

After centuries of allowing emotions to control the actions of society, the government has finally come up with a way to regulate the disease that causes outbreaks of unyielding feelings and blatant passion responsible for violence and wars. Everyone gets the procedure to remove the fatal illness, amor deliria nervosa, at the age of eighteen. Anyone who does not submit to the procedure may infect others with the highly contagious disease. Resisters are referred to as invalids and are held in horrible prisoners. There are a few lucky ones who manage to escape and live their lives on the other side of the fence, in the Wilds. Books were written describing the dangers of living with the disease and Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet is taught at schools as a cautionary tale.

In less than three months, Lena will be cured. Before the procedure, Lena must be evaluated by scientists and doctors and prove that she will not be a sympathizer to those with the disease. Lena has mixed feelings about the procedure as her mother had the procedure a number of times and was never fully cured. The numerous procedures eventually led to Lena’s mother’s suicide. Lena wonders what will happen when she is cured. Will her body adjust or will it reject the cure and allow the disease to win? Lena’s evaluation jitters are temporarily put on hold when a herd of cattle is released into the evaluation building. In the midst of the chaos, Lena looks up to the observation deck and sees Alex, a boy with a dangerous secret.

Alex doesn’t act like most of the cured people Lena knows. In fact, Alex knows more about the cure and the sympathizers than anyone should. Every piece of information that Alex tells Lena leads her farther and farther away from the cure and closer to life with the delirium. Every moment Alex and Lena spend together is breaking the law but how far can love push them?

Delirium brings up interesting, thought-provoking questions about the underlying elements of criminal acts, but also shows what life would be like without love or emotion. Oliver’s world is a bit fuzzy at times, like how much of the country subscribes to the procedure and who is really in charge of the law, but readers will overlook the questionable issues presented for a story that is romantic, yet action-packed.

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Aug 06, 2021 Crystal rated it it was ok · review of another edition

Like many others, I'm a big fan of Lauren Oliver's Before I Fall but I did not feel the same magic with this novel. Overall, the novel isn't bad, the writing isn't bad, the story isn't bad, per say, but this one definitely wasn't for me. The premise could be interesting - outlawing love - but the world-building was shy of complete and I couldn't help wonder at the logistics of such a society and that distracted in a big way from the story.

Unfortunately, the plot was a thing I've read many, many, Like many others, I'm a big fan of Lauren Oliver's Before I Fall but I did not feel the same magic with this novel. Overall, the novel isn't bad, the writing isn't bad, the story isn't bad, per say, but this one definitely wasn't for me. The premise could be interesting - outlawing love - but the world-building was shy of complete and I couldn't help wonder at the logistics of such a society and that distracted in a big way from the story.

Unfortunately, the plot was a thing I've read many, many, many times before - plain Jane girl can't be with uber-hawt, rebellious boy because restrictive society says so. I knew from the first page what type of story it would be, what type of characters there would be, and exactly where the plot would go.

As for the characters, I couldn't connect with them. Lena was such a straight-laced girl that I never felt any real stakes weighing against her changing her attitude. But she did! For... reasons. I was constantly wondering WHY Lena would chose to be 'different' when she was mentally going on and on about being normal. It was frustrating that her reasoning behind this was always 'I couldn't help it but I was horrified internally but somehow I couldn't help it!'. Give me a REASON she's willing to rebel (even a little bit), not some vague mental flip-flopping that she can't even make sense of herself. I can understand that sometimes vague mental flip-flopping happens to the best of us but... because there was NO explanation of why she would ever flip-flop once, let alone a million times, made it feel like a cop out.

The other characters were just as basic... amazingly attractive, dangerous boy who spouts poetry and anti-establishment thoughts, rebellious best friend who is just rebellious enough to drag the main character into trouble but not rebellious enough to actually do anything, strict parent-figure who is more straight-laced than the main character so the main character can seem more open-minded in comparison... I feel like I've seen these characters a lot in YA lately. ...more

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