Delirium (Delirium #1)

Oh. My. Goodness. This book was amazing and breathtaking and astounding. Basically, this book was any fantastic word you can think up. The beauty that Oliver is able to conjure up from a world so lifeless and dull is fantastic.

At first I thought Lena was too average and I couldn't possibly imagine her ever doing anything to the contrary of what she's always known. Slowly, though, she transforms. And it's perfect. It doesn't feel forced or at all wrong. And of course, I was sympathizing with her the whole way. How can one not sympathize when love is in question? In a world where a love for one's children doesn't even exist it still manages to rise up and take hold of some people. I almost wanted to shout for joy when love started grabbing hold of Lena.

Delirium is amazingly well crafted. I loved all the little snippets at the beginning of chapters that were from books and writings that only existed in this made-up world. It's little touches like that which make it real and truly draw the reader in. The disease itself is incredibly believable. At one point it lists all the symptoms and I couldn't help but thinking it does sound exactly like a disease. With all the diseases that scientists are constantly "identifying" it seems only a matter of time before things we take for granted become known as a disease as well.

The writing is simply beautiful. I was devouring yet savoring each and every little word because they were all special. I wrote down one of the things that struck me near the beginning: "[bright buildings] glistening like teeth over the slurping mouth of the ocean." There's so much more like that, but you'll just have to read it and find out for yourself.

Final thoughts: I can't say enough good things about Delirium. It was amazing and thought-provoking. And you seriously have to read this book. Be prepared for an awesome cliffhanger, though. It left me seriously antsy for Pandemonium.

WOW. Lauren Oliver just blew my mind. I knew I would like this book, but other than that, I didn't know what to expect. This was very subtle and, at some points, a little slow. I didn't truly realize how extraordinary and unique this was until the end. As I read, I slowly realized how much I loved this story and cared about the characters.

The story and world in this book are unlike any I've ever encountered before. A world without love; it sounds terrible, but the author wrote it in such a way that it's possible it could happen. She gave us background as to how this idea of love as a disease came about, and I was fascinated. It was a very different experience reading this, but different in the best way possible.

The most prominent thing about this novel, along with the story, was the writing. The author's descriptions and word choices made this dystopian world and these characters come to life. There were too many stand out lines in this book to count. Here's one that really caught my attention:

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. It draws up through the center of your life, cutting everything in two. Before and after. The rest of the world falls away on either side.
Before and after-and during, a moment no bigger or longer than an edge.



I also really enjoyed the characters. Lena was very likeable but also complex. It was interesting watching her thinking and feelings change over the course of the book as she meets Alex. Alex was very sweet and nice. I also liked Hana; seeing her and Lena's relationship play out was fun.

Overall: While the pacing is slow at times, this book will have you mesmerized. A must read!

BEST BOOK EVER.

I really liked that this was set in the future but the tech was the same as now. This was a very intresting book and I really enjoyed learning the rules of the world Lena lives in. Oliver really captured the feelings in this book perfectly. In a world where Love is deadly, Lena learns that it is also the only thing worth living for.

This is one of my earlier reviews which is why it's so small!

I loved it. It was perfect. So exciting.

The simplest way to tell you what I thought of it is to assure you that I'll be reading the sequel. I will be reading it, come hell or high water. The end left me hanging, as the first of a trilogy ought.

I also like love stories. I would like to think I am more academic than that, but the truth is that a good love story is, in my opinion, the best of all stories. The trouble is that they're so rare. Good ones, I mean. Delirium is a novel unabashedly about love, and the absence of love, and the consequences of that absence, and what it looks like to find love in a setting otherwise literally devoid of it. And not just romantic love, but the love of a mother for her daughter, the love between sisters and friends... all of it.

Lena is a girl who has waited eagerly for the procedure for years, the procedure everyone gets at the age of eighteen that will take away her ability to feel love. She has been looking forward to this because the absence of love will also mean the absence of fear and the absence of pain. She has been looking forward to this because the one thing she wants more than anything is to finally be just like everyone else.

What she does not expect is that love will find her before her eighteenth birthday. That she might meet the one person who can show her how ugly, bereft, and oppressive the world she lives in truly is. When she does meet him, the walls she's built around her heart are quickly pulled down, and the question of losing her love for the sake of fitting in becomes absurd. The consequences, however, will mean the end of all she's known. She is willing to take the risk, because she loves. But she may not survive.*

Some of the wonderful things about this book: Lauren Oliver has taken a rather extreme plot line and turned it into something plausible, readable, and natural. Nothing about Lena's world seems unlikely. Every outlandish element of this loveless society has its root in something familiar - whether it be our natural fears, our mobbish tendencies, or our insecurities. And the characters are believable, too. Nothing is unreal. It's also a storyline I would have liked to have written, which is to say that it's a world I would like to sit in longer, and these are characters I want to know better.

Having said that, I did not at first like Lena much. I did not buy her eagerness for the procedure - and not because the procedure seems so obviously horrible to anyone outside the system. It didn't seem believable because of her character and her history. Oddly enough, as she gradually changed her mind about the procedure, gradually came to realize that the society she had so long supported with all her heart and mind was at its roots corrupt and dehumanizing, I started to believe where she'd come from.

In the same on-the-fence sort of way, I loved Lauren Oliver's writing, her very human descriptions, the way she never hesitated to sit in a single, precious observation for as long as it was necessary. I also found myself skimming almost full pages of description that were just a bit more florid or tangential than the present moment of the story called for. In other words, it was occasionally a bit wordy.

But it was also beautiful, and personable, and fearful all at the same time. I have high hopes for the next book. And I hope very much that the third will follow fast behind.


*Of course she will survive. Who are we kidding.

Do I recommend it? Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes!!!!!

Delirium is an absolutely FANTASTIC book that, while I was rating it, I would have given it a 10 out of 5!!!!! lol.

Delirium is set in the future, when love is considered a disease. When people turn 18, or as close as possible to their 18th birthday, they become cured for the "delirium nervosa" aka love. Lena is an unremarkable 17-year-old who can't wait for her operation. She counts down the days until she can be cured. She is constantly afraid of the disease that could be swirling around her veins and take control of her. And everything would probably have gone to plan, she would have been cured and paired up with a man who she will never love, have unremarkable dinners on unremarkable days. But everything changed on her evaluation day, the day when the judges will decide who she will be paired up with. Suddenly, a stampede of cows comes charging in, ruining everything. To make matters worse, she saw a BOY that dared to WINK at her.

Lena's world starts falling apart. Her best friend Hana starts going to illegal parties after curfew that are COED, and wants Lena to join her. Not wanting to prove Hana's point that she is weak, Lena starts sneaking out after curfew too. To make matters worse, she seems to keep the same boy from the evaluation everywhere, and she starts to find a strange attraction to him. At first, Lena is terrified. She is infected with deliria,and she will soon die. At least, thats what she thinks. With Alex's help, Lena starts to see the true meaning of love, and all the lies her entire world has been built on.

But what will happen once the regulators find out, as they are bound to at some point? What will happen when Lena has to take the cure, and will eventually forget about Alex? I'm not going to tell you. You want to find out, read the book. It will be worth your while!

An AMAZING book about finding out our true selves inside, and an insight on an epic world where love is something to be ashamed of, something that could get you executed.

"Before scientists found the cure, people thought love was a good thing."

Once you fall in love, you've caught the disease. You think differently, you act differently, and nothing is right. Luckily, once you turn eighteen, you can receive the cure. You'll live a perfectly predictable, normal life. Before eighteen, you're on your own. The cure can't work on someone that young, the side effects could be devastating.

At first, Lena Holoway couldn't wait until the day she'd finally receive the cure to "Amor Deliria Nervosa". But after encountering a few out-of-the-ordinary circumstances, she starts to think differently.

Lauren Oliver created such a unique and well-written story. Delirium had me hooked from the first page. I wanted to learn more about Lena's society; how it functions, what the people are like, and how life can go on without love. I felt like the whole thing could actually happen. Love as a disease? at first you'd think "no way". But with the explanations given in the handbook, it's plausible, and coming up with the idea for it just shows Lauren Oliver's creativity.

I love Lena. She's so sweet and seemingly oblivious to what love really is. In the beginning her thought process and how she considers the strong emotion are awesome. When she figures it out.. well, I'll let you see what happens.

I can never say enough how much I love books like this- set in the future with an alternate way of life, completely different from our own. A creative mind is needed to make something unique and outside the box, and Delirium fits this completely.
5/5 stars. Definitely.

In this book, love is a diease, there is only one cure, to have an operation that gets rid of a part of your brain that makes you feel emotion. In a few months, Lena will have her operation and her life will be endlessly better. She wants to be cured so badly, until she meets Alex. An invalid living among the cured, Lena is intrested to such an extent that she is afraid that she may be infected. Lena falls in love with Alex and realises that love is not a diease but a thing so powerful that it will change her life forever.

Full of lies and secerts, sacrifice and love. This book will make you think twice about what love really is. I am so reading the next book!