Delirium Review

Love, the deadliest of all deadly things.
It kills you both when you have it, and when you don’t.

I have been infected with Amor Deliria Nervosa and I do not want to be cured. This is one disease I am happy to have contracted and I can only hope that I am highly contagious. The only word I can use to describe Delirium by Lauren Oliver is WOW. Lauren has done it again and left me speechless with her profound and intelligent writing style that hits you straight in the heart.

Delirium is set in a dystopian society where love is to be feared and as such eradicated from everyday life. When a person comes of age at eighteen, they are “cured” by undergoing a medical procedure and then they don’t have to endure the horrible symptoms of love and everyone can live happily ever after, right? Well that’s what people in Delirium are led to believe. We learn about the world through the eyes of 17 year old Lena Holoway who is only weeks away from being cured. Drenched in fear, she is actually looking forward to having the procedure so she won’t have to worry about contracting the disease anymore. After all, she’s grown up with the knowledge that love destroyed her mother and is desperate not to end up like her. But all that changes when she meets Alex, a guy who makes his own choices and lives by his own rules and he introduces Lena to a world she never knew existed.

I have to say that I could not put this book down. I was completely sucked into Lena’s world and I didn’t want to come out of it. Don’t get me wrong, I certainly don’t want to live in that world but I found the storyline so compelling, that I couldn’t bear to come away from it until I knew what was going to happen next. I can’t imagine living in a world without love and if I thought that was a possible reality for me, I wouldn’t want to live. So you see, love really can kill you when you have it and when you don’t.

I really enjoyed Lena’s character and the personal journey she went on throughout the book. I also love the fact that Lena and Alex are opposites. Lena is afraid of everything and Alex is the exact opposite or maybe that’s not entirely true. Maybe he’s just learnt to feel the fear and do it anyway. Gracie was an interesting little character and I really liked Lena’s best friend Hana who was daring and nonchalant, always testing the limits and pushing boundaries.

I’m sure I’m not the only person to say that the dystopian society of Delirium reminded me a little of the film Equilibrium (starring Christian Bale) where the general ethos is to take away ALL FEELINGS by taking a pill each day. Of course this is temporary and can be eradicated by not taking the pill however in Delirium, once you’re cured that’s it. Except for the rare few who the cure doesn’t appear to work on but I shall say no more about that.

Delirium is an extremely thought provoking read that will stay with you for a long time and has a shocking ending that will leave you beating down Lauren’s door to demand the sequel NOW. If you fall in love with one book this year, let it be this one.

Thank you to Hodder Children's Books for providing me with an review copy.

Delirium is released on 3rd February for UK readers and 1st February for US readers. The sequel to Delirium, entitled Pandemonium (which I named!!!!) comes out in 2012. Lauren Oliver is of course the best selling author of Before I Fall and you can find out more about her here. Lauren is also active on Facebook and Twitter. If that wasn't all, you can also access the fan site "Deliriously Falling" here.