Delirium (Delirium Trilogy, 1)

Lauren Oliver's Before I Fall was my favorite book of 2010 and I was eagerly anticipating her new dystopian follow up. Since I'm such a fan of both Lauren Oliver and dystopian books I had high expectations Delirium. I'm happy to say Delirium did not disappoint, and impressed me just as much as her first book. I read this book originally several months ago and was pondering it for a while deciding what to say in a review. I was emotionally wrecked after reading it the first time. I decided to re-read it after publication to pull my thoughts together. I ended up listening to the audiobook format this time. Delirium takes place in Portland Maine in a future world where love is considered a disease. The disease is identified as amor deliria nervosa and scientists perform brain surgery on all citizens when they turn eighteen to cure them of the disease. Just before the procedure the candidates must submit to an interview before they can be matched to their ideal husband/wife. The main character Lena is just about to turn eighteen, and is looking forward to her procedure. Both of her parents have died, and the cure for deliria did not work on her mother after 3 attempts. Lena's best friend Hana is starting to rebel against the strict regulated books, music, and curfews they are expected to follow. Lena and Hana are at an after-curfew party when Lena meets up with Alex. They fall hard for each other but of course need to keep their relationship a secret. Unfortunately the clock is ticking on Lena's procedure date. The writing is incredible in this book. Ms. Oliver has a way with words and the emotions of the characters leap off the page. The writing is lovely and descriptive throughout the novel. Another nice touch is the passages at the beginning of each chapter. There are quotes from different government approved books, including the "Book of Shhh," an abbreviation for "The Safety, Health, and Happiness Handbook." These quotes provide more of a glimpse of the dystopian world. The set up of the book was done well and showed Lena's life prior to getting "infected" by Alex. In the beginning, Lena is on board with the government program to get matched and have the procedure. She did not want to end up un-cured like her mother, although she misses and remembers her fondly. The government restricts all kinds of activity that inspires love/deliria or laughter and bugs phone calls and conducts random raids to look for violations. It is interesting to see Lena's opinion change as she becomes more intrigued with the lives of "resisters." This book explores relationships very well, and one of the strongest bonds in the book is between the friends Lena and Hana. They are best friends and have all kinds of plans of things they want to do before their procedure is scheduled. They enjoy going running together particularly. Lena worries that her friendship with Hana won't be the same after the procedure. The relationship between Alex and Lena is one of the most compelling aspects of the book. Their relationship is smoldering and passionate, and he opens her eyes to a different world. They have the odds stacked against them and it makes you want them to succeed as a couple that much more. The book really shines in the final third of the book, when the action leads to a gut-wrenching cliffhanger. I can't wait to find out what happens next. The next book in the series cannot arrive soon enough. Regarding the audiobook - I enjoyed listening to the book in this format. Actress Sarah Drew reads the book. Grey's Anatomy fans will know her as April. Since I listened to the book after I read it first, I had an opinion on what Lena's voice would sound like. At first, the reader did not match up to my expectation of Lena's voice. However, as I listened more to the story I felt the reader did a great job with conveying Lena's emotions and with the voices of the other characters. The audiobook is just over 11.5 hours long. Delirium is the first book in a trilogy. This book sets up the dystopian world well, but there is room to fill in more details about how the world ended up this way in future books. The premise seems believable and possible, and I enjoyed the dystopian elements. I would consider this book to be more about love and relationships first, but with a dystopian setting. I would recommend Delirium to fans of Before I Fall, as well as fans of YA and dystopians. The writing is simply beautiful, with a well-crafted story that will haunt you.

I could never imagine a world without love. But, that is exactly what Lauren Oliver has done with Delirium, and she's done it beautifully. I've been wanting to read this book for a while, but I was a little reluctant because I've become quite burnt out with dystopian series--The Hunger Games, Divergent, Legend. But, I decided that I would try one more, and I'm glad that I did. Amid a flood of dystopian novels, Delirium definitely stays afloat. Here are the five reasons why I gave Delirium 4.5 out of 5 stars: ★ REALISTIC PROTAGONIST I really loved Lena's character. She seemed more real to me than any of the other female heroines that exist in dystopian stories today. One characteristic that makes Lena unique is that she actually likes the world she lives in. She's perfectly okay with the idea of never falling in love because that is what she knows. She's never experienced anything different. Katniss didn't look forward to The Hunger Games. Tris didn't look forward to the Choosing Ceremony. But, Lena looks forward to receiving "the cure". As you can guess from the synopsis of this story, Lena does eventually end up falling in love, but she does so quite unwillingly. This is where that age old phrase "you can't help what your heart wants" comes into play. At the start of the story, we see that Lena is not someone who is going to throw her morals and everything she believes in out the window for a hot guy. I was really pleased to find that this book's romance aspect was far from typical. One of my biggest book pet peeves are the love stories where the girl or guy is easily wooed by another girl or guy just because they're good looking. Lena is forced to make tough decisions about whether she will act on her newfound love and what she is going to do about her future. Will she stick to the comfort and routine of the world she knows or will she risk everything and allow Alex to show her more? ★ LENA'S MOTHER I found the relationship Lena had with her mother to be one of the most intriguing aspects of this story. Lena's mother is her ghost, the thing that keeps her from going after what she wants and needs. I don't think it's spoilery to tell you that Lena's mother was sick with deliria nervosa and killed herself when Lena was only a child. You learn that in the first few pages of the story. To readers, when Lena describes her mother, she seems completely normal. But, to Lena, her mother was a freak. There is a beautifully written part of the book where Lena talks about the relationship she had with her mother. They used to sing and dance together, and her mother would kiss her scrapes and bruises when she fell--all things that people who were "cured" of the disease of love would never do. When Lena was young, she enjoyed her mother's comfort and the fun they had dancing in their living room. But, now she realizes that those activities weren't normal. Something about reading how Lena thought her mother was sick and weird really touched my heart. It made me sad for the children who have to grow up in Lena's world, never knowing a mother's love. And, it made me appreciative of my mother and the relationship we share. ★ OLIVER'S WRITING This is the first novel of Lauren Oliver's that I have ever read, and I absolutely love her writing. Her words create such vivid images in your mind. And, they flow beautifully and lyrically, like poetry. I really enjoyed the way Oliver described love, and how she wrote Lena as becoming alive when she experienced love. Here are some of my favorite quotations: "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." "Love, the deadliest of all deadly things: It kills you both when you have it and when you don't. But that isn't it, exactly. The condemner and the condemned. The executioner; the blade; the last-minute reprieve; the gasping breath and the rolling sky above you and the thank you, thank, thank you, God. Love: It will kill you and save you, both." If any of that seems complicated, believe me when I say that Oliver's writing is both beautiful and understandable. Once you start reading and get a sense of her voice, you'll know exactly what her words mean. ★ CLIFFHANGER ENDING When the ending of the first novel in a trilogy makes me cry, I know that that author is doing something right. Out of all the series and trilogies I've read--The Hunger Games, Divergent, The Mortal Instruments, The Infernal Devices, Harry Potter--none of them have ever made me cry over the first installment. The ending of Delirium was stunning--I was literally stunned. The ending gave me anxiety. There was a point where my heart was pounding and I had to set the book aside for a few minutes. And, then, I was yelling at the book the way you yell at your television. I had to cover the pages with my hands so that my eyes wouldn't flutter forward and spoil the ending. I love cliffhangers, and Delirium provided me with one. It left me with questions, and it prompted me to immediately go to Amazon and buy Pandemonium and Requiem. And, the last sentence, the last few paragraphs--they're all so beautiful. This book's ending just gave me all the feels. I can't even accurately express how it tore my heart to pieces. You have to read it and experience all of the emotion for yourself. ☆ SLOW START I'm taking away half a star for this book because I found it difficult to get into. The beginning was quite slow and lackluster, as Oliver did a lot of world building in that section. I tend to like books where I am hooked from the very beginning and I didn't feel that with this one. There were times when I didn't want to keep reading because I was so bored. But, all the great reviews that I'd read for the book kept me going. Needless to say, I am very glad that I finished Delirium! Eventually,​ the pace picks up, and the story gets better. But, for me that wasn't until sometime after the halfway point of the book. *** I highly recommend this book! I know that many people out there are getting tired of dystopias, and I totally understand how you feel. But, before you jump off the dystopia wagon, I think you should read just one more. Read Delirium, because it's beautiful and it speaks to the most human aspect of all of us: our hearts.

ディストピアのラブストリーって感じで面白かったです。 １巻だけで比べれば同じディストピア系の”Matched”のほうが個人的には面白かったですが。 でも、２巻目以降はDeliriumのほうが断然面白かったので、どっちを読もうかなーって迷っていたらこっちをおすすめします。 英語も読みやすいのでおすすめです。 このシリーズは毎回続きがすごーく気になるところで終わるので、Kindleで読むのでなければ一度に3冊購入してから読むことをお勧めします。

***This review may contain spoilers (Of this book and the "Uglies" trilogy)*** It's been a number of years since I read I last read Scott Westerfield's "Uglies" series and over time I have obviously forgotten details here and there, but after reading "Delirium" I feel like a lot of what I forgot about the "Uglies" series is coming back to me. Now you may be thinking, "Huh? How in the world would that happen?" Well because "Delirium" is so entirely similar to the "Uglies" series. Both stories revolve around a Dystopian world where the government is trying to control its people in crazy ways. In the "Uglies" trilogy when someone hits the age of 16 they become "pretty" through ridiculous amounts of plastic surgery and whatnot (and they unknowingly become somewhat dumber/ have their thinking dimmed down in order to keep them like sheep, unable to think for themselves/ unable to rebel against the government). In "Delirium" when someone hits the age of 18 they are "cured", a procedure which makes them unable to contract amor deliria nervosa, better known as love. Their government has entirely convinced then that love is the root of all evil, from love comes jealously, hate, and the likes of and such emotions lead to unrest, death, pretty much everything but the apocalypse (or who knows, they probably do think that love will led to the apocalypse). And then there is the characters. In the "Uglies" series Shay starts to question the world around her and brings to the attention of the main character Tally that all is not as what it appears to be. She begins to opens Tally's eyes up to a whole new world around her and encourages her to partake in illegal activities in which the both of them couple get in major trouble for. In "Delirium" Hana also starts to question the world around her and shows main character Lena that their life has so much more to offer them- like Shay, Hana encourages Lena to partake in illegal activities. Both Tally and Lena cannot wait until the day that they can have their procedures... That is, until they meet a boy... The boys...? Both boys are rebels, they live outside of the world that the government has created, they are "wild', "dangerous" and totally "off-limits". In "Uglies" David in born in the Smoke, the world outside of the government created world, from rebel parents- those who fled from the controlled world. He has is still an "ugly" as he never had the procedure to make him "pretty". Alex in "Delirium" was also born in the world outside of the government created one- the Wild, to parents who had fled from said government created world. He also has never underwent his procedure- the procedure to cure him from love. Both boys stand for everything that the governments hate and fear. As for the differences between the two books? Well, they exist, but in my opinion the similarities far outweigh them. That being said, I do think that many people will enjoy "Delirium"- though I am sure that there are some hardcore "Uglies" fans out there who will be shaking their fists at Lauren yelling "You completely copied Scott's book!" Thankfully, I am not one of those people. I can read countless vampire/ werewolf/ witch/ whatever stories whose plot lines have been overplayed again and again and never get sick of them. But what I wonder (and I don't mean this in a mean way whatsoever I am honestly just curious) is what is Lauren Oliver's opinion in this whole matter? Had she read the "Uglies" trilogy prior to penning this novel? Was she aware that her book seems entirely reminiscent of the "Uglies" trilogy? When all is said and done I much say that overall I prefer the characters of "Delirium's" over "Uglies". I feel like Alex's personality was a gazillion more-there than David's was. And I couldn't stand Shay whatsoever in the "Uglies" trilogy (I'd say that if I had to pick one turn-off from that series, it'd be her), but I really liked Hana. I think that "Delirium" is a lot softer of a book and that those who love romance will love this book...

Me encantó! Llego súper rapido, cuidado y muy buena historia

Have you ever thought, for the slightest second, have you wished even, that you could be cured of love and live happily without it? For Lena, that is her world. Reminiscent of Matched by Ally Condie, Delirium is a futuristic world where love is outlawed. Lena lives in a future where love is a mental disorder. Amor deliria nervosa. And when people turn eighteen, they get cured once and for all and they never get infected again. Lena counts down the days to get cured. She longs for her life to start. For happiness. And then, as the count down progresses, she does a thing she never thought she was capable of. She falls in love! Oliver is a wordsmith of poetic imagery and emotion. Her carefully crafted chapters are a breeze to sweep by, but also impactful and suspenseful that it is almost unbearable to put down. Every chapter begins with a passage which is as artfully crafted as the story and the world it is set on. The characters take a life of their own. The story feels like a tragedy waiting to happen. The protagonists, the limelight of a Romeo and Juliet incarnation of loss and love of the modern times. Lena starts off as the advocate for the cure and as eager as any teenager her age is to get treated. But for the revolution to start, it has to start inside, in the mind. For the revolution to start inside someone or something has to challenge your beliefs. That's what happens when Lena meets Alex. She starts to question the world she has been born and raised into. For the brain to awake and see clearly, something has to spring it and alarm it. Alex is the perfect vessel of change. However, he not only cultivates the revolution in Lena's spirit, but also becomes the first love, the first crush. The one who opens your eyes into a world of feelings and foreign sensations. The prose is full of similes and metaphors, imagery and vivid pictures it reads like a poem. Written in the first person, it's self reflective, self-absorbed. The reader is let in on a seamless stream of consciousness narrative where they take the chance to really see what goes on inside the brain of this confused girl, how it thinks, associates and disassociates and the important thought processes that lead to change. The plot is simple, but not uneventful; that's for sure. For its synopsis you would think it would be very futuristic and dystopian. On the contrary, it is as realistic as any of the classics. It is about ordinary people in extraordinary conditions. It runs smoothly moment by moment, second by second, as the change and the shift in focus take place, take shape and form. Every chapter leaves you wanting more. It's never enough. The reader is made to want, need even, another peak (because it feels voyeuristic, as if you're a pipping-Tom in someone's else life) into a moment of their time. That takes skill and lots of brains to master as a writer. Something that made me think about the concept however, is the use of the word love. You'd think if love was outlawed the verb and noun would also be rejected and banned from use. Yet Lena loves running, loves summer. Loves things. So wouldn't loving objects be risky? If you still loved things what could stop you from loving people? On a more personal note, I was reading some other reviews and read about the book being all anti-feminist because it needs a man, Alex, to bring about the sense of fulfilment in the female protagonist, Lena. I want to disagree to the ends of the Earth with that. Opposite-sex relations are constricted with power politics. It's inevitable. But let's not forget that love is the same no matter who you are. It just so happens that the protagonist here is a young woman who falls for a guy, who happens to awaken her senses and her awareness of the world. When you fall in love in real life, you don't care about such dynamics between the sexes. You don't think about them. This happens in academic researches. When you fall in love you are you. You're not a woman, not a man. You're yourself. I think the book would read the same if Lena was a male character or if Alex was female and the relationship was a same-sex one. We've learnt to throw feminism into every literature where there is a woman protagonist and see if it is fit for the feminist, girl-power canon. Let's just remember that sometimes you are a woman who is a female who needs saving and sometimes you're a woman who is female and saves others. Nothing is black and white. Besides no girl actually attempts to kill herself because she was damped for her "own good" (Twilight hint). If you want something to bite down to your core and bring about thoughts and scepticism about what it means to live without love, then give this book a definite read. And then maybe you'll want to read the second in the trilogy as bad as I want to right now.

Bons points : c'est une série donc si on a aimé le premier, l'histoire perdura, tout comme le plaisir. L'histoire est intéressante, et fait du bien. Bien-sûr il y a une histoire d'amour, ce qui est tout l'intérêt de l'histoire car c'est interdit. Pourtant ce n'est pas une autre histoire de Roméo et Juliette. Rassurez-vous : je n'ai rien spoilé! Le petit point négatif est le format, c'est un livre épais, écrit petit ce qui fait paraitre les chapitres très longs. En lisant on se fatigue vite ce qui peut être agaçant car l'histoire est captivant, on veut en savoir plus, mais on se fatigue.