Lena Haloway lives in a world where love is a disease. An infection. She lives in a world where love has a cure. On her eighteenth birthday she, like everyone else, will get the Procedure. She will be cured of ever getting the disease. The deadliest of all deadly things. This is something everyone accepts. They believe love should be avoided and are glad for the procedure. Lena never really believed that. Until her mother died for love. Now? She can't wait for her procedure. She counts down the days until she can forget the pain of losing her mother and all the other pains love brings into life. But when her best friend Hana gets a little rebellious, Lena is forced to confront the underground world she never wanted to be a part of; forbidden music, forbidden parties, forbidden conversations. Along with that comes Alex. A boy. A handsome, mysterious, forbidden boy who takes an interest in her. But Lena wants no part of that either. The last thing she would ever want is to contract the deliria. The illegal, dangerous disease she's waited her entire life to be safe from. The delirium. It kills you both when you have it and when you don't.
What We Think
Reviewed by Dream Catcher
Number of Pages: 441
I'd heard about this book a bit before I read it. You know, the usual thing a blogger tends to hear about a book; it's amazing. Every book has a least one fan that thinks it's absolutely fantastic - no matter how bad the book is. I wasn't sure what to think. Until I heard exactly what the book was about. A world without love. A fascinating concept. So the book immediately went to the top of my to-read list. And I kept hearing good things. So I took a chance and read it. Were all those fans gushing about Delirium right about it? WAS it amazing? YES.
As cheesy as that introduction may have been, it's true. Starting with characters. Lena: our main character extraordinaire. Magdalena Ella Haloway. Frankly, she was a great main character. She is the exact product of growing up in a society like that. A strict rule-follower and proud of it. But then the deliria changes her. I loved her character completely. Usually main characters kind of get on my nerves. They complain too much, or they make ridiculously idiotic decisions (leading to their untimely downfall which they somehow survive past despite the fact they haven't changed at all), or they're too quick-to-judge, or too clueless. Lena wasn't this way. Lena never annoyed me. She complained, but not extensively. She make some not-too-smart decisions, but they weren't laughably stupid, just the-human-mistake type of decisions you can kind of understand. She was scared, but never TOO scared. I guess you understand my point by now. Everything in moderation. What was great was that the Lauren Oliver used character development. Lena grew throughout the story, and it made her more of a three-dimensional character, which is harder and harder to come by these days. So Lena was great. Alex. Equal part serious, determined, and all-around-likable. As the love-interest, these qualities are extremely important. It seems some authors somehow forget that, while you want love-interests to be "mysterious" (or whatever), you don't want to lose them completely in the thick fog of what's unknown. And there's always the book where you don't understand why the main character's in love with the guy. Nothing's more annoying than that. Obviously, that wasn't a problem in Delirium. I understood why she'd fall for him. He was what she needed and she was what he needed. Viola. The perfect match. I guess that's my roundabout way of saying his character was good, too. Hana. I wasn't sure whether or not I would like her at first. I thought she was going to be the practically-perfect-in-every-way, beautiful best friend character. To be honest, she turned out to be exactly that. But better than I expected. Because along with being practically perfect, she was a great friend to Lena and was always very supportive and unafraid. Loyal to the bitter end. Her bossiness was funny and her charm was, well, charming. Bet you didn't see that coming. She turned out to be an important character in the book, and she was a good one. A lot of the remaining characters were the same. I didn't mention them in the gist because they're really not worth mentioning in any gist. Rachel (Lena's older sister), Aunt Carol (Lena's aunt and guardian), Uncle William (Carol's husband) - all the same. They're all cured, you see. They're supposed to be the same. Bland. Unfeeling. Blank. They were obnoxious. But, of course, they were supposed to be. Along with being annoyed, though, I somehow felt bad for them. They had to live this monotonous life. Kind of sad. So the fact that I felt any sympathy at all shows they were all very well written. Two more people I have yet to mention are Jenny and Grace - Lena's cousins. Jenny was annoying but she was supposed to be. Grace was quiet and innocent. I loved her character, even if she wasn't in much of the book. The final, very important character in Lena's mom. You never actually meet her in the story, but she's described so much you feel like you know her. She was different from the other cured people; strong and fearless. She was a character this book couldn't do without. So, as you've probably guessed, I thought the characters were fantastic.
Briefly: Setting. PORTLAND. Loved that it was in Portland. I've been to Portland. Saw a Sea Dogs game a while ago. Anyways, I've been to Portland. It's cool to have gone to where this story takes place. Cool that it's not something as overused as NYC (though I can never resist NYC) but at the same time not some made-up town in the middle of the-author-conveniently-left-that-detail-out. It made the whole story seem more real. Like the government might declare love a disease at any moment. Really made me feel a part of the story.
Okay. First line. Here it is. "It has been sixty-four years since the president and the Consortium identified love as a disease, and forty-three since the scientists perfected a cure." This is a pretty good beginning line, I'd say. Really gets the point of the book across. No beating around the bush. At the same time it's a little detailed. Eh. I won't be nit-picky. It's a perfectly good beginning sentence. Ending line: AWESOME. Seriously. It's great. The perfect way to end the book. On that note, this book isn't really the end...two more books to come. I'm excited. The next one's called Pandemonium. Sounds intense. I cannot wait for it to come out.
Don't worry. I'm almost done. Title. Delirium is the perfect name for the book. You might be getting tired of me saying how perfect everything in this book is, and I know I never really believe it when reviewers say this and that and everything was just dandy. But this book really was dandy. Read it. You'll see. So anyways, title was great. Cover. I really don't have much to say about it. It wasn't the worst cover ever, but it wasn't the greatest. I know they recently reprinted the book with a new cover (this of a girl staring dramatically at you) but I have the one that's blue with the author's name and the book title revealing the face of a girl. I think it's pretty good. It wouldn't get me to read it, but it certainly wouldn't drive me away.
Moving on (finally) to writing. It was amazing. Poetic and beautiful. There were tons of similes, but never too many. She always just made everything sound graceful with them. They weren't humdrum, overused similes. They were different and special. I dunno. Half of what made this book so great was that the writing wasn't boring or dull. It had a sort of sparkle. A Lauren Oliver sparkle, maybe. I don't know. But the writing was fantastic and I wish every book could be written in this style. I feel the need to include my favorite line. It's the type of thing that stays with you. Sticks in your memory. Makes you think. "I love you. Remember. They cannot take it."
Real Teen Rating ~ A+ : Why are you still reading this, go buy this book now!
As cheesy as that introduction may have been, it's true. Starting with characters. Lena: our main character extraordinaire. Magdalena Ella Haloway. Frankly, she was a great main character. She is the exact product of growing up in a society like that. A strict rule-follower and proud of it. But then the deliria changes her. I loved her character completely. Usually main characters kind of get on my nerves. They complain too much, or they make ridiculously idiotic decisions (leading to their untimely downfall which they somehow survive past despite the fact they haven't changed at all), or they're too quick-to-judge, or too clueless. Lena wasn't this way. Lena never annoyed me. She complained, but not extensively. She make some not-too-smart decisions, but they weren't laughably stupid, just the-human-mistake type of decisions you can kind of understand. She was scared, but never TOO scared. I guess you understand my point by now. Everything in moderation. What was great was that the Lauren Oliver used character development. Lena grew throughout the story, and it made her more of a three-dimensional character, which is harder and harder to come by these days. So Lena was great. Alex. Equal part serious, determined, and all-around-likable. As the love-interest, these qualities are extremely important. It seems some authors somehow forget that, while you want love-interests to be "mysterious" (or whatever), you don't want to lose them completely in the thick fog of what's unknown. And there's always the book where you don't understand why the main character's in love with the guy. Nothing's more annoying than that. Obviously, that wasn't a problem in Delirium. I understood why she'd fall for him. He was what she needed and she was what he needed. Viola. The perfect match. I guess that's my roundabout way of saying his character was good, too. Hana. I wasn't sure whether or not I would like her at first. I thought she was going to be the practically-perfect-in-every-way, beautiful best friend character. To be honest, she turned out to be exactly that. But better than I expected. Because along with being practically perfect, she was a great friend to Lena and was always very supportive and unafraid. Loyal to the bitter end. Her bossiness was funny and her charm was, well, charming. Bet you didn't see that coming. She turned out to be an important character in the book, and she was a good one. A lot of the remaining characters were the same. I didn't mention them in the gist because they're really not worth mentioning in any gist. Rachel (Lena's older sister), Aunt Carol (Lena's aunt and guardian), Uncle William (Carol's husband) - all the same. They're all cured, you see. They're supposed to be the same. Bland. Unfeeling. Blank. They were obnoxious. But, of course, they were supposed to be. Along with being annoyed, though, I somehow felt bad for them. They had to live this monotonous life. Kind of sad. So the fact that I felt any sympathy at all shows they were all very well written. Two more people I have yet to mention are Jenny and Grace - Lena's cousins. Jenny was annoying but she was supposed to be. Grace was quiet and innocent. I loved her character, even if she wasn't in much of the book. The final, very important character in Lena's mom. You never actually meet her in the story, but she's described so much you feel like you know her. She was different from the other cured people; strong and fearless. She was a character this book couldn't do without. So, as you've probably guessed, I thought the characters were fantastic.
Briefly: Setting. PORTLAND. Loved that it was in Portland. I've been to Portland. Saw a Sea Dogs game a while ago. Anyways, I've been to Portland. It's cool to have gone to where this story takes place. Cool that it's not something as overused as NYC (though I can never resist NYC) but at the same time not some made-up town in the middle of the-author-conveniently-left-that-detail-out. It made the whole story seem more real. Like the government might declare love a disease at any moment. Really made me feel a part of the story.
Okay. First line. Here it is. "It has been sixty-four years since the president and the Consortium identified love as a disease, and forty-three since the scientists perfected a cure." This is a pretty good beginning line, I'd say. Really gets the point of the book across. No beating around the bush. At the same time it's a little detailed. Eh. I won't be nit-picky. It's a perfectly good beginning sentence. Ending line: AWESOME. Seriously. It's great. The perfect way to end the book. On that note, this book isn't really the end...two more books to come. I'm excited. The next one's called Pandemonium. Sounds intense. I cannot wait for it to come out.
Don't worry. I'm almost done. Title. Delirium is the perfect name for the book. You might be getting tired of me saying how perfect everything in this book is, and I know I never really believe it when reviewers say this and that and everything was just dandy. But this book really was dandy. Read it. You'll see. So anyways, title was great. Cover. I really don't have much to say about it. It wasn't the worst cover ever, but it wasn't the greatest. I know they recently reprinted the book with a new cover (this of a girl staring dramatically at you) but I have the one that's blue with the author's name and the book title revealing the face of a girl. I think it's pretty good. It wouldn't get me to read it, but it certainly wouldn't drive me away.
Moving on (finally) to writing. It was amazing. Poetic and beautiful. There were tons of similes, but never too many. She always just made everything sound graceful with them. They weren't humdrum, overused similes. They were different and special. I dunno. Half of what made this book so great was that the writing wasn't boring or dull. It had a sort of sparkle. A Lauren Oliver sparkle, maybe. I don't know. But the writing was fantastic and I wish every book could be written in this style. I feel the need to include my favorite line. It's the type of thing that stays with you. Sticks in your memory. Makes you think. "I love you. Remember. They cannot take it."
Real Teen Rating ~ A+ : Why are you still reading this, go buy this book now!
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