Delirium (by Lauren Oliver)

Title: Delirium
Author: Lauren Oliver
Publisher: HarperCollins
Release Date: August 2, 2011
Purchase: Barnes n' Noble / Amazon


The Beatles said "all you need is love." But, in Lena's world, love is the last thing you could want or need. Love is forbidden, it is even feared. Lena lives in a United States that has identified love as a disease and perfected a cure for it. When the book opens, Lena is counting down the days till her procedure, ninety-five days to be exact. Then she will be safe and become one of the thousands of other "cureds." The "cureds" are the U.S. citizens that have had the "love" extracting procedure and are marred by a scar that they are proud of. After she is "love-free," Lena will go about the life that the government assigns her, forgetting her former joys, friendships, cares, heartfelt wants and needs.

A world without love was like trying to see without eyes. I was both baffled and intrigued by this concept. To begin with, I was surprised most that Lena wanted the life of a "cured." She believed that love was deadly and for a person like myself, that believes love is in everything and is everything, I had a hard time seeing what she saw. But as the story progressed, I began to see how love can be deadly. For we die loving one another and without love, what is life? So if you never experience love, how can you die from never knowing it? It's the same concept of "what you never have, you never miss." Although I understood Lena's fears, I had the hopes that see would "she the light." And (spoiler alert) what sets the story in motion, is that she does.

I love this book. The characters were brilliantly developed, as was the plot. I felt every emotion strongly and both cheered and morned for Lena. I loved the progression of Lena's character and the characters that she encounters and builds relationships with. The relationships that develop, were set in a timely way that felt real and true to life and were fantastically lovely.

I strongly recommend this book and praise Lauren Oliver's work.