Review: Delirium (Delirium, #1) By: Lauren Oliver

Title: Delirium (Delirium, #1)
Author: Lauren Oliver
Publisher: HarperTeen, 440 pages (February 1st 2011)
From: the Publisher, Thank You!

Synopsis: 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.


Review: 5 Stars - Lauren Oliver has created something epic with the first book in her new trilogy Delirium. You know from the first page right through to the very last that you are reading something… special? Yes. Stunning? A thousand times over. Easily making this one of the single best books I’ve read. Oliver has taken words and made them submit to her in this now, beloved by many, dystopian story surrounding a society hell bent on curing… Love.

Who would have thought that a book telling the story of a single girl – Lena – and her path to being cured of “Love” or in Oliver’s world “amor deliria nervosa” would have had the effect that it did not only on me, but so many other readers. It’s hard to imagine a world where love is medically cured at the age of 18, but Oliver’s writing, characters and story make falling head first – your heart following soon after – into its pages inevitable.

Lena is just a few months away from being cured and while she’s questioning things because of her past, it’s her present and what’s ahead in her future that ultimately changes her. She knows being cured is what comes next and is what is expected when you turn 18 years old. Once cured you are married to your perfect match and go on to live a normal if not mundane life. Her struggles to accept things on either side… the cure vs. Alex are what nudge her on and into a decision that’ll ultimately change the world for her and those around her forever.

And then there’s Alex. He’s different and Lena knows it. She’s not sure exactly why, but it’s there. It was quick to see how they were drawn to each other. Some secrets about Alex come out and in many ways force Lena to see the world, love and her life through different eyes and in the end giving her many different options that were never there. Alex was the perfect blend of good guy. Their relationship was thrilling and sweet and full of many emotions that you’re able to experience right along with the two.

With the date of Lena’s cure approaching fast the two are faced with some hard choices. It’s a thrilling end and a heartbreaking last few pages to say the least. Oliver has taken such an emotion as love and turned it upside down, inside out and changed it from head to toe. How is that possible you ask? Well, you’ll have to read Delirium to see for yourself.

FTC Disclaimer: I did NOT pay for this book, nor have I been compensated at all in any way or means for reading and writing this HONEST review.