Delirium - Book 1

Delirium by: Lauren Oliver

“It has been sixty-four years since the president and the Consortium identified love as a disease, and forty-three since the scientists perfected a cure.”

What's this book even about? 

In the book, Delirium, love is illegal. This is set in the future in Portland. The Cooperative has found a cure that makes you not have the feeling of love. They think that love is something that you should not experience because it alters your way of thinking. In the beginning, Lana was counting down the days until she got the cure. Her mother had killed herself because the cure had not worked for her and she was "infected" with love. As the days get closer to her cure, she starts exploring what had been deemed illegal. She starts going to concerts with illegal music with Hanna and she meets a boy, Alex. She is starting to question everything. Why is certain music and books illegal if they are actually good? Then, she starts falling for Alex. At first, she denies the feelings because she still think that love is a disease. Eventually, she lets herself go and ends up falling in love with Alex. She spends the days leading up to her cure date with Alex and Hanna in an abandoned part of town. She gets to learn about Alex and he gets to learn about her. She doesn't understand why love is illegal. She decides that she doesn't agree with the cooperative, the people in charge anymore and wants to try and escape to the Wilds. The Wilds is a place beyond the fence in Portland where people that do not have the cure try and escape into to be free. Join Lana in her journey to see if she can escape from the Cooperative, and if she gets to live free with love in her heart.

So what?

Why should you read this book? Have you ever wished for a life without heartbreak? People were tired of dealing with heartbreak and losing the people they loved the most. That's why they developed the cure, and eventually enough people were taking it to decide that love should be illegal and everyone needed that have the cure to it. This shows what the world would look like without love in it. How would people act? How does it look once you feel love? This book shows you why love is such an important emotion to feel, even if it hurts us sometimes. I think that it's important that our young readers read this because usually this is the time they are experiencing their first love or heartbreak and may be thinking they don't ever want to experience it again. Emotions are hard at any age, but especially in our young adults as they journey through puberty. This book can give them perspective in the sense that emotions are normal for us to have, and we'd be zombies without them.

Thoughts and Rating

I would give this book 5 out of 5 stars. ★★★★★

I am a sucker for a good romance. I loved to see Lana change and grow into someone that resisted the change and follow her heart. The end of the book, which I will not give away, had me in tears and longing for something different to happen. It had me wanting to keep reading and wanting to find out what choice Lana would make next. If you like books that have drama, action, and a dystopian society, then this is the book for you!

(Me after finishing the book)

About the Author

The author is Lauren Oliver. She has written many YA books. This book is actually part of a series that you could read. Her twitter handle is: @OliverBooks . She also has a website: www.laurenoliverbooks.com . Check her out!