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

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

Shelves: audiobook-d, 2012, yaf, 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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Apr 18, 2011 Robyn rated it liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: audience-ya, sci-fi, romance, dystopia

I am a big fan of young adult dystopias, and when I read the synopsis for Delirium I was hooked. The idea that love could be considered a disease that needs to be cured is really interesting. Oliver does a great job laying the foundation for this future love-fearing society, even including excerpts from medical books describing the symptoms of love and history books describing the process of discovering "the cure." Of course, like most YA dystopias, the book is an exploration of the loss of self ...more

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