March 4, 2011

Delirium - Lauren Oliver





 

Young Adult
DeliriumPages: 448
Publisher: HarperCollins
Release Date: February 1, 2011

Before scientists found the cure, people thought love was a good thing. They didn’t understand that once love -- the deliria -- blooms in your blood, there is no escaping its hold. Things are different now. Scientists are able to eradicate love, and the governments demands that all citizens receive the cure upon turning eighteen. Lena Holoway has always looked forward to the day when she’ll be cured. A life without love is a life without pain: safe, measured, predictable, and happy.

But with ninety-five days left until her treatment, Lena does the unthinkable: She falls in love.

This is a book that could easily be worth reading only for the premise. The dystopian concept that Lauren Oliver came up with is beyond fascinating. Every single time she describes the disease I felt my mind was blown a bit. I kept wondering if one can really miss love if you've never known it? Would you really live a dull-full life for fear of pain? As much as I think I couldn't, I think people who've been really hurt would say yes. Anyway, my point is that the world-building in Delirium was fantastic.

The writing, oh, the writing. Lauren Oliver has a gift with words. Such beautiful prose that this might be one of the most quotable books I've read. It's like a story made of poetry, absolutely stunning.

With that said, those who read my reviews know that pace is very important to me. I get easily bored. Specially if I'm reading dystopia, I like it quick. So the pace in this one was not my favorite. The ending was a very heart-pumping fast pace, but the rest of the book was slow to me. It could be due to the fact that I was not really feeling the characters either. They didn't stand out or do anything other than think. There's not much character action in the book, so there was little character depth. Neither Lena nor Alex have any personality traits that I can think of. These things were a little disappointing.

Overall, I enjoyed Delirium and if you are a hopeless romantic and enjoy beautiful prose this is the book for you.


4 comments:

  1. Yes, the pace was slow in spots, but the writing characters, and the story made up for it. Lauren Oliver is a fantastic writer and I cannot wait for her next book.

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  2. I definitely liked Delirium, but the ending is killing me. She did a great job of setting us up for the sequel!

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  3. I'm a hopeless romantic. This is perfect for me. Ahhhh! Lauren Oliver is such a poet, I cannot wait to get my hands on this one!

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  4. I agree with you on this one - the pacing was a little slow, the characters were pretty generic, and the plot was predictable (especially if you've read a lot of dystopians). I still really liked it, though. Even if I'm not quite sure why :)

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