Delirium is a young adult dystopian novel with a unique premise. It is set in a future where love is considered a disease classified as amor deliria nervosa. People are terrified of catching this disease and what it may lead to. After all, individuals throughout history have done some crazy things in the name of love. So this society in the future decides that the best thing will be to somehow get rid of this disease altogether, and it manages to achieve this with the help of an invasive procedure that everyone goes through when they're eighteen. Sure, some people are resistant to this, but this doesn't stop the government from making the cure mandatory and force-feeding it to everyone. After the cure, people emerge like robots and are paired with other cured people with whom they live and have children.
Lena Haloway lives in this society, and she is a good little girl who is looking forward to having the cure. She's bought into everything the government has told her, and the example of her mother, who fell victim to love, is enough to make her want to run in the opposite direction. Lena has a best friend, Hana, who is more of a rule-breaker than her. However, in a reversal of roles, the good girl, Lena, starts having feelings for an outsider who lives in the wilds, beyond the city boundaries, while Hana continues to conform to the rules. As Lena falls more and more deeply in love, she will be forced to decide whether she wants to continue with life as she knows it and have the procedure or run away for good. The end of this book will shock you and keep you wondering until you read the sequel.
Delirium is a grabbing book with an original concept, and the characters are well-written and convincing. Anyone who has ever been in love will sympathize with Lena's plight and root for her relationship with Alex. But will Lena be able to brave the wilds and step out of society altogether for the sake of love?
Lauren Oliver was born in Queens, New York and grew up in Westchester, New York. She is the daughter of two literature professors and was encouraged to be creative in any way possible from an early age. She attended the University of Chicago where she studied Literature and Philosophy and then returned to New York where she got an MFA in Creative Writing from New York University and worked at Random House. Her first book, Before I Fall, has been optioned to be made into a movie. She has also written a trilogy of dystopian books consisting of Delirium, Pandemonium and Requiem. She lives in Brooklyn with her fiancé.
Lauren Oliver's powerful New York Times bestselling novel Delirium—the first in a dystopian trilogy—presents a world as terrifying as George Orwell's 1984 and a romance as true as Romeo & Juliet.
In an alternate United States, love has been declared a dangerous disease, and the government forces everyone who reaches eighteen to have a procedure called the Cure. Living with her aunt, uncle, and cousins in Portland, Maine, Lena Haloway is very much looking forward to being cured and living a safe, predictable life. She watched love destroy her mother and isn't about to make the same mistakes.
But with ninety-five days left until her treatment, Lena meets enigmatic Alex, a boy from the Wilds who lives under the government's radar. What will happen if they do the unthinkable and fall in love?
Delirium received starred reviews from Kirkus and School Library Journal, and was named a Best Book of the Year by USA Today, Kirkus, Amazon.com, YALSA, and the Chicago Public Library and was selected as one of NPR's Top 100 Best Ever Teen Novels.
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