In the future, love will be classified as a disease.
At least, that’s the case in Delirium, a dystopian novel by Lauren Oliver. At eighteen-years-old, citizens of the United States of America must undergo a procedure – a “cure” – that will result in them being unable to love anyone ever again, whether it’s a spouse (assigned by the government), child (number of children allowed is allotted by the government) or family member (interaction with other family members is limited and impersonal).
Delirium is, predictably, a love story. It doesn’t pretend to be anything different. It’s almost unnecessary that I tell you that protagonist Lena Halloway ends up falling in love, just months before her cure, with a boy named Alex. The cure — which Lena used to believe in totally and blindly — suddenly became the enemy hurdling towards her. She begins rebelling against the cure, trying to find ways to escape the procedure that will take away any semblance of love that she has for Alex or her little sister or her best friend. This was a predictable twist.
But the writing, the love story itself, the beautiful descriptions of everyday things, the relationships created and destroyed between characters, the book as a whole — all of this can only be described as unexpected, surprising and stunning.
Oliver writes like a poet. She takes the mundane and molds it into something different, something beautiful. Most teen dystopian writers tend to fall back on the expected, the cliche. Nothing about this book is cliche. The love story is brilliantly done and unexpectedly original.
Oliver didn’t get outlandish with her future society and she stayed away from political or state of the world details — these things don’t matter to the story. Instead, Oliver takes time to describe Lena’s school and neighborhood and that is what makes this book so believable and timeless. The only difference between Lena’s life and ours is the looming sense of awfulness that no one there loves each other, that no one there can love each other.
This is, at its core, an achingly beautiful and simultaneously intense and innocent love story, told with such subtlety that you almost don’t notice how terrible things are without love until Lena realizes it herself.
I tried to look for flaws in this book — that’s what reviewers do. But there simply aren’t any. The writing is fantastic. The love story is powerful. The society is believable. The action is enthralling. If you plan on doing anything productive in the 24 hours after starting this book, here’s a warning: don’t start reading. You won’t be able to stop.
Lauren knows who her target audience is: if modern day teenagers love two things, it’s dystopian books and love stories. Usually in the same novel. So, if you want a beautifully done dystopian thriller/love story, read Delirium as soon as possible.
Symptoms of Love ( “Amor Deliria Nervosa”) as described in the Safety, Health and Happiness Handbook (Book of Shhh)
“Phase One:
Preoccupation; difficulty focusing; dry mouth, perspiration, sweaty palms; fits of dizziness and disorientation; reduced mental awareness; racing thoughts; impaired reasoning skills
Phase Two:
Periods of euphoria; hysterical laughter and heightened energy; periods of despair; lethargy; changes in appetite, rapid weight loss or weight gain; fixation, loss of other interests, compromised reasoning skills; distortion of reality, disruption of sleep patters; insomnia or constant fatigue, obsessive thoughts or actions, paranoia; insecurity
Phase Three (critical):
Difficulty breathing; pain in the chest, throat or stomach; difficulty swallowing, refusal to eat; complete breakdown of rational faculties; erratic behavior; violent thoughts or fantasies; hallucinations and delusions
Phase four (fatal):
Emotional or physical paralysis (partial or total); death
If you fear that you or someone you know may have contracted deliria, please call the emergency line toll-free at 1-800-PREVENT to discuss immediate intake and treatment.”
Top 10 Delirium Quotes
- “My heart is drumming in my chest so hard it aches, but it’s the good kind of ache, like the feeling you get on the first real day of autumn, when the air is crisp and the leaves are all flaring at the edges and the wind smells just vaguely of smoke – like the end and the beginning of something all at once.”
- “We stand there for a moment, looking at each other, and in that instant I feel our connection so strongly it’s as though it achieves physical existence, becomes a hand all around us, cupping us together, protecting us. This is what people are always talking about when they talk about God: this feeling, of being held and understood and protected.”
3. “One of the strangest things about life is that it will chug on, blind and oblivious, even as your private world – your little carved-out sphere – is twisting and morphing, even breaking apart. And still the sun rises and clouds mass and drift and people shop for groceries and toilets flush and blinds go up and down. That’s when you realize that most of it – life, the relentless mechanism of existing – isn’t about you. It doesn’t include you at all. It will thrust onward even after you’ve jumped the edge. Even after you’re dead.”
4. “I wish I could close my eyes and be blown into dust and nothingness, feel all my thoughts disperse like dandelion fluff drifting off on the wind. But his hands keep pulling me back: into the alley, and Portland, and a world that has suddenly stopped making sense.”
5. “The wind whispers his name and the ocean repeats it; the swaying trees make me think of dancing. Everything I see and touch reminds me of him, and so everything I see and touch is perfect.”
6. “I press my hands against my chest, wishing I could somehow be even closer to him. I hate skin; I hate bones and bodies. I want to curl up inside of him and be carried there forever.”
7. “I know that the whole point—the only point—is to find the things that matter, and hold on to them, and fight for them, and refuse to let them go.”
8. “It’s amazing how words can do that, just shred your insides apart. Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words can never hurt me – such bullsh*t.”
9. “Love: a single word, a wispy thing, a word no bigger or longer than an edge. That’s what it is: an edge; a razor. It draws up through the center of your life, cutting everything in two. Before and after. The rest of the world falls away on either side.”
10. “Poetry isn’t like any writing I’ve ever heard before. I don’t understand all of it, just bits of images, sentences that appear half-finished, all fluttering together like brightly colored ribbons in the wind.”
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