Delirium by Lauren Oliver

Summary:

Love can be painful. It can make people do crazy things. It can be the root of all of humanity’s problems. Like a disease, once love gets in the system, it is nearly impossible to stop. To eradicate such problems, scientists have come up with a cure for love or deliria. In this dystopian world, the government requires all citizens to receive the cure upon turning 18. Lena Holoway has seen the horror the delirium can cause and is excited about receiving the cure so she can be free from the side effects of love. But days before she is about to be cured, Lena falls in love.

She meets Alex, an Invalid (a person who is over 18 and has not been cured). He lives in the Wilds, the lands outside of the electric fenced cities with other uncured people who hope to usurp the government and make love legal again.

Check out this cool interactive book trailer from Oliver’s website!

What I liked:

• This should be a What I LOVED section because I absolutely ADORE this book!!!!
  
• If you’ve read other reviews of this book, you may already have gleaned that Lauren Oliver writes in the most beautiful prose. Her descriptions are so perfect. Her words manage to be gorgeous without going over the top.
• Oliver writes with EXCELLENT pathos (emotional appeal). Her stories create this sweet ache in your heart that no other stories can. She draws you in, makes you hers, and keeps you for the entire story. There are too many memorable passages to quote but here’s an effort:
  
• I love the concept. There are a lot of similar dystopian novels out there like Ally Condie’s Matched, but Delirium is my favorite by a mile. I just find the world Oliver created to be extremely fascinating. She even inserts little excerpts from the government’s Book of Shhh at the beginning of every chapter for an especially authentic feel. Apparently Oliver thought of the novel while watching a news story about a plague (love is considered plague-like in the novel) and that she’d read an article about how all books were either about love or death. Her first book was about death so she decided to make her second about love.
• Lena is an OUTSTANDING character. I recently listed her as one of my top five favorite YA heroines.
• Oliver paces the novel (and series) very well
• There was just enough adventure and adrenaline-inducing moments mixed with lovey-dovey moments to give good balance

What I didn’t like:

• When I just read the first book, I was infuriated at the cliffhanger. After reading the other two books in the trilogy, I feel more satisfied, but how DARE Oliver play with my heart?! Maybe love really is a bad thing…
• The beginning didn’t really grab me. I just kept chugging along because I’d heard such great things about the book. I have little patience for slow-starting books because I feel like since DAY ONE my teachers drilled into us that the beginning of anything should be an attention-grabber. YET so many of the books I read do not follow this guideline.
  

But back to the good stuff:

Reading Oliver’s words feels like falling in love. It holds a special place in my heart because of the emotional attachment I have to the profound words Oliver shares and the beautiful characters she creates. I can’t get enough of this book. I read it a while back and just now caught up on the last two books in the series. (And by caught up I mean I obsessively devoured them).

I usually become very cynical about authors writing trilogies. I feel like it’s a trend in YA.

I’m torn between yelling: Whatever happened to just writing one, solid, awesome book?! Just stop

And PLEASE GIVE ME MORE!

In Delirium’s case, I think Oliver had planned the series enough that it felt very necessary and natural. Like I said, Oliver is a master at pacing stories so I enjoyed the trilogy and the themes it introduced along the way.
   

I don’t know how academic this book is, but I would really like to have a classroom discussion about it. There are so many FANTASTIC ideas raised in the novels that would make for rich discussions or essays. Oliver has even provided a discussion guide for the first book on her website here:

Click to access Delirium_DiscussionGuide.pdf

If you’ve read the novel, please feel free to comment on your experience or share any discussion questions you think may be useful in a book club or classroom.

Finally, MOVIE/ TV Rumors:

According to the ever-reliable Internet, Fox had optioned a pilot for the trilogy, but it never got picked up. Rumors indicated that Emma Roberts (who I am not a fan of) had been cast as Lena and Daren Kagasoff from The Secret Life of the American Teenager (which I am also not a fan of) had been cast as Alex. Obviously, I am ecstatic that this TV show never came to fruition. I just think that so much of Delirium hinges on Oliver’s beautiful words that an adaptation in film could never do it justice.

Lauren Oliver has written other books for the Delirium trilogy about the secondary characters that are featured in the book. I haven’t read them yet because I can never decide if I want to read what could feel like Fan Fiction or just leave it to my imagination. Who am I kidding? I’m obsessed. I’ll read them.

Oliver has written many other books including her debut novel Before I Fall that is another savory piece of YA, like Delirium. It’s about a girl who relives the day she died every day for a week. Not my usual bag, but I loved it.

Find out more about other books Oliver has written here:

http://www.laurenoliverbooks.com/books.php

Related articles

• Review: Delirium by Lauren Oliver (grownupbookreports.wordpress.com)
• Book Review: Pandemonium (Delirium #2) by Lauren Oliver (talkingbookworm.com)
• Delirium Trilogy by Lauren Oliver (mybookopinions.wordpress.com)

Friday Five: My Favorite YA Heroines

1. Hermione Granger from the Harry Potter series by J. K. Rowling
   Hermione is my everything. I don’t care if it’s cliché. Harry Potter made me fall in love with reading. I’d read and enjoyed books before, but these books ignited my voracious love for the written word, and Hermione was the first character of her kind that I’d encountered. Unabashedly bookish, brave, clever, loyal, and all around awesome, I wanted (ok, still want) to be Hermione. I love that Rowling wrote such an unapologetic character. Hermione is muggle-born (a stigma in the wizarding world), she’s a know-it-all, and she’s not concerned about being in style or being cool. She works hard and helps her friends.
   Best Hermione Quote: “Books! And cleverness! There are more important things — friendship and bravery.”
   
2. Katniss Everdeen from the Hunger Games trilogy by Suzanne Collins
   To understand my deep love for Katniss, you have to know that when I read the Hunger Games for a class my freshman year, I was coming off the cultural high known as Twilight. Yes, I too was once swept up in the madness. This, in addition to reading other sappy YA novels left me looking for a girl I could actually admire. Enter Katniss Everdeen. First off, Katniss is a grade A++ badass. She hunts with a bow and arrow, volunteers to compete in the Hunger Games, and wins. More than that, Katniss has two guys pining for her pretty heavily. BUT- She. Doesn’t. Care. She’s got a revolution to inspire, people! Bigger fish to fry than deciding which guy is more of a dreamboat! Obviously, romance comes into play, but I love that Katniss is a female character whose life DOESN’T revolve around guys. FOR ONCE! Plus, Katniss made braids and archery cool.
   Best Katniss Quote: “No one will forget me. Not my look, not my name. Katniss. The girl who was on fire.”
   
3. Cinder from The Lunar Chronicles by Marissa Meyer
   Cinder is the vamped up, modern Cinderella. Except, she’s a cyborg- part human, part machine. She’s still Cinderella in the sense that she’s stuck with an evil stepmom and stepsister who treat her like and indentured servant and refuse to let her go to the Prince’s ball. Cinder, however, is also the kingdom’s best mechanic which I obviously love because mechanics are stereotypically male. She also doesn’t cower in the face of adversity. She’s brave, confident, funny, cool, and someone I could see myself being friends with in the event that I happen to live in the distant future where cyborgs are an everyday thing.
   Best Cinder Quote: “I’m sure I’ll feel much more grateful when I find a guy who thinks complex wiring in a girl is a turn-on.”
   Read my review of Cinder
   
4. Liesel Meminger from The Book Thief by Markus Zusak
   Living under the Nazi regime, Liesel is followed by Death everywhere she goes. Death, the narrator, doesn’t usually stop to pay attention to humans, but Liesel catches his attention. She’s strong. She suffers through the death of her family and moving to a foster home. She steals books before she can even read them. She helps hide a Jewish man in her basement. I don’t even have the right words to describe how beautiful Liesel is as a character. She’s especially important to me because of her compassion and her devotion to the written word, a love I clearly share.
   Best Liesel Quote: “I have hated the words, and I have loved them, and I hope I have made them right.”
   Read my review of The Book Thief
   
5. Lena Haloway from The Delirium trilogy by Lauren Oliver
   Lena lives in a dystopian world where love is treated like a disease. Her society even vaccinates for it. In her world, love is dangerous. You can get infected by it and become an outcast while experiencing the pain that comes with feeling love. Lena is ready to get rid of those pesky feelings. Then a few days before she’s cured forever, she falls in love. I could read about Lena’s life forever, and that’s a true credit to Lauren Oliver. She writes incredible characters.  Oliver seamlessly develops Lena throughout the trilogy and writes her with such rawness, that your heart can’t help but be touched.
   Best Lena Quote: “I’d rather die my way than live yours.”
   It was hard to pick only five! There are, thankfully, a growing number of awesome heroines in YA lit. Please feel free to share your favorites or let me know if my five would match up with yours.

   Read a great article from YALSA: “What We Talk About When We Talk About ‘Strong’ Heroines in Young Adult Lit” http://www.yalsa.ala.org/thehub/2013/03/14/what-we-talk-about-when-we-talk-about-strong-heroines-in-young-adult-fiction/

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