Wednesday, May 30, 2012

Delirium


by Lauren Oliver

Summary:
Love is a disease.  When you're in love it can make you spacey, irrational, completely useless.  When you're not in love any longer it can make you angry, upset, a menace to society.  But what if all those negative side effects of love could be eliminated, and instead you could live your life like a completely rational human being?  Lena has never had to worry about this.  The government has found a way to completely cure people of falling in love, of the delirium that strikes those who contract this disease.  She is only 95 days til she gets the surgery that will forever protect her from being hurt, from ever having to suffer from the disease like her late mother.  But then she meets Alex, and everything she ever believed about love is questioned. 

Review:
One of the reasons I liked Delirium was that unlike in other dystopian novels where the populace is simply compliant with the governments wishes without a real reason, this population all undergoes a surgery to rid them of their more emotional sides and leaves them rational and compliant.  This factor helps to explain why the surgery continues and why the cycle is perpetuated without much complaint, as all the 'cureds' simply believe that the 'uncured' children will lead better lives without emotion and become much easier to handle, which they do.  Oliver has created not just a love story in a world where love is forbidden, but a story about how something as natural as love has become the enemy.  The premise of the book is, at first, fairly out there, but as the book progresses you find yourself wondering which side is really going to win in the end.  Very well written and engaging.

Genre: Dystopian
Age Level: 9th Grade
Series Information: Delirium, Pandemonium, Requiem

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