REVIEW: Delirium by Lauren Oliver

Title: Delirium (Delirium #1)

Author: Lauren Oliver

Publication Date: February 1^st 2011

Publisher: Hodder and Stoughon

Format: Paperback

Pages: 393

Rating: 3.5/5
Blurb: They say that the cure for Love will make me happy and safe forever.

And I've always believed them.

Until now.

Now everything has changed.

Now, I'd rather be infected with love for the tiniest sliver of a second than live a hundred years smothered by a lie.

Lena looks forward to receiving the government-mandated cure that prevents the delirium of love and leads to a safe, predictable, and happy life, until ninety-five days before her eighteenth birthday and her treatment, when she falls in love.

Review: Going into this book I was a little weary. You can imagine how a book that seems to be pretty much entirely about love could go incredibly wrong, but I was pleasantly surprised by Delirium.

As usual, let’s talk about the characters first. The main character, Lena, was pretty alright. I enjoyed reading about how her views of love changed through the novel and how she as a character developed along with it. I also liked her love-interest, Alex. He was interesting, and I liked how sometimes their ideas and views clashed. I even liked Lena’s aunt and cousins, especially how different they were to Lena. The thing was, I really hated Lena’s best friend-Hana. At the start, I had nothing against her but as the novel progressed she began to annoy me and I felt like she didn’t really deserve Lena as a friend for a while there.

Plot-wise, I went into this novel expecting it to be almost completely about love but I found that it really wasn’t. While there was a big focus on love and romance, it also had aspects of family and those sorts of relationships, lies, death, rebellion and so much more. I think that without all these different parts that I wouldn’t have enjoyed the novel nearly as much as I did.

World-wise, I especially liked the additions of the beaches, fancy houses and nature which isn’t really something we get to see explicitly in dystopia novels like this. So I enjoyed the contrast between that world, which was sort of connected to Alex and love, and the world that still believed love was a disease.

If you’re unsure about Delirium, I suggest you give it a go especially with a TV show possibly in the making.

You can buy Delirium on The Book Depository (Free shipping worldwide):  here