Delirium by Lauren Oliver

Before scientists found the cure, people thought love was a good thing. They didn’t understand that once love - the deliria - blooms in your blood, there is no escaping its hold. Things are different now. Scientists are able to eradicate love, and the governments demands that all citizens receive the cure upon turning eighteen. Lena Holoway has always looked forward to the day when she’ll be cured. A life without love is a life without pain: safe, measured, predictable, and happy. But with ninety-five days left until her treatment, Lena does the unthinkable: She falls in love. 
{taken from goodreads.com}

 

I just read the final chapters of this book moments ago, so bare with me as I type this very emotional & very raw review.  Because that is exactly what it will be.

I wish there was a word that I could possibly think of to encompass my feelings about this book.  Greatness? Thought-provoking? Immaculate? Bold? Honest? Gut-wrenching?  Those are just a few words that wrap around my brain as I try to process what I just read.  Lauren Oliver has created something so powerful, that it speaks to me much further than just a book.  She has created & manifested a world so inspiring & emotional that it is no longer just words on a page.  Delirium is a piece of art that I want to frame & put on display for the whole world to see, because EVERYONE needs to experience this.

This dystopian novel is set in the future, in Portland, Maine.  The government has found a cure for what they call amor deliria nervosa.  It is a known fact that the people understand love is the ultimate disease that will infect & ruin mankind.  So when Lena is on the verge of turning 18, and set to under-go the procedure to be "cured", she feels that her life is about to change, and not in the way she always assumed it would be.  On the day of her evaluations she meets a young boy who is responsible for that change.  Could this be fate? Or is it an accident that she too is walking in the same footsteps that her own mother did, not so long ago.  Lena has spent the majority of her childhood living with her Aunt, Uncle, and cousins.  She has been told that her mother was never cured & eventually the disease brought her to her death: suicide.  With these facts drilled in to Lena's brain, she is frightened of becoming her mother.  A tiny voice toys at the back of her mind & slowly creeps insider of her, revealing a world she never knew existed.  That same boy who she met on the day of her evaluations, Alex, creeps back in to her life as well.  From then on Lena is forever changed.  Lena has fallen in love.  Lena has become infected.

The world that Lauren Oliver has created pulls the reader in & makes you believe that such a place exists.  That love is the ultimate threat to society.  We see examples of how their society treats this emotion as something awful & forbidden.  We witness those who have been cured & feel saddened for the robots they have become, full of nothing, no emotion what so ever.  Their every day lives are mundane & meaningless.  Seeing this provokes an even deeper sadness for Lena & Alex.  We want them to live a happy & fulfilled life together.  They deserve it.  So when reality comes down on the both of them, decisions must be made.  Does Lena stay and follow through with the procedure, as so many others have done so before her?  Or do Alex & Lena escape beyond the borders, to a world known as the Wilds, where people do exist & carry on with a life full of love & meaning?

Reading the story through Lena's eyes, feeling her thoughts being pulled between what is right according to society & what is right for her, was beautifully tragic at times.  Imagining a life without love, without feelings, without purpose is blackness.  The answer appears to be easy, the choice is hers.  However, following through with that decision is not easy at all.  I stormed through this book in a little over 2 days.  Never wanting to put it down.  I cried.  I screamed.  I caught myself holding my breath.  Delirium will remain on my mind, seeped in to my skin, crushed in to my bones for days to come.  I can feel it.  I have definitely been infected.