A Deep
and Fascinating Love Story in a wonderfully constructed Dystopia
5 Stars. Lauren Oliver
has a wonderful way with words. Her characters in Delirium were deep and well
developed and I enjoyed watching them, particularly Lena, grow and learn and
change. She creates a deep and fascinating world that looks at how different
people would be without love. I also really enjoyed how she pulls you into her
story by using beautiful, lyrical prose.
One of
the things I really liked about this book was that it had an interesting way of
combining religion and science and portraying elements from both of these to
explain why the people in this story think the way they think. Oliver took
parts of religion and science and showed how people in this society twisted them
in order to believe that love was a disease. She does it so well that you can
really understand why they believe this.
Oliver
did a wonderful job of scene building and providing examples to explain the
world she created. She makes it believable that it could exist, that it could
be the world we live in some day. Part of what helped me believe in this world
was the quotes at the beginning of the chapters and little phrases that Oliver
created. They added a lot to the story and I greatly enjoyed them.
I also
loved how Oliver not only looked at romantic love but love between parents and
their children and love between friends, and how these relationships change and
even fall apart without love.
The main
character, Lena, goes on a journey of discovery in Delirium. She has to grow as
a person to be able to see through to the truth. I enjoyed reading about her
journey which started with her fully believing in the ways of her society and
government. She accepted that people were cured of love when they turned 18 and
the fact that your spouse was essentially chosen for you, she even appreciated
these things. Then she started to learn about things that she never knew
existed. She started to open her eyes up to all the things she was never
supposed to know about. Watching her discover things like music, and love were
wonderful and I believed every one of her reactions.
All of
the characters in this story were well written. I loved Alex and his
relationship with Lena. I loved the way they grew together and that he had a
reason for being drawn to her. Alex and Lena truly fell in love, this is not a ‘we
love each other for no reason’ kind of story and I really appreciated that. I
also loved Hana. At first I thought she was going to be somewhat stereotypical
of a character, she’s beautiful and popular and perfect, but there was so much
more to Hana.
Every part of this
book was well done and I look forward to reading more of this series and more
from Lauren Oliver.
I fell in love with the characters and needed to know how their stories turned out. The only complaint I have is that we have to wait another year for the next installment in the series! This is a definite must-read.
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