Love is a sickness. It makes people obsessive, moody, violent, and dangerous. Therefore love is banned. The government controls and sees everything, making sure the populace is safe and well behaved. For 43 years love has been classified as a disease and cured on the patient’s 18th birthday, whether they like it or not. But that suits Lena just fine, in only 95 days Lena will be safe from Amor Deliria Nervosa forever. Then she meets Alex and she wants to be ill forever.
Disappointing. That’s the sad word that kept popping up as I read Delirium. Oliver’s first novel Before I Fall (YP FIC OLIVER) was one of the best books I read last year (read the review here), and I read A LOT of books! So I was very excited to see Oliver tackle a Dystopian Novel (even though they are totally the new vampires, i.e. overplayed). Unfortunately Oliver just isn’t much of a world builder. She takes SO LOOOOOOOOONG to move her story forward, but she doesn’t use it to provide much of a backstory for her Evil Government. There isn’t enough information on how they came to power in the first place, so it kind of seems hard to buy. On the plus side, the book has excellent writing. Oliver is so great at setting up realistic moments and transporting the reader. I totally got behind the character’s and their love story, I just wanted a better envisioned world and a tighter plot. The book picks up pace at the end and actually has an effective and moving climax, I just wasn’t nearly moved as at the end of Before I Fall. This is part of a trilogy, so hopefully the second volume looks more in depth at the world Lena lives in.All in all Delirium is a GOOD book and worth reading if you like Dystopian Love stories, it just isn’t a great book (like Before I Fall).
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