Book Review - Delirium / Pandemonium

 

Delirium

Author: Lauren Oliver 

Series: Delirium #1

Genres: Dystopian, Science Fiction | Young Adult

Release Date: February 7th 2012
Publishers: Harper Collins

No. Pages: 441

Source: Borrowed

Rating:

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Ninety-five days, and then I'll be safe. I wonder whether the procedure will hurt. I want to get it over with. It's hard to be patient. It's hard not to be afraid while I'm still uncured, though so far the deliria hasn't touched me yet. Still, I worry. They say that in the old days, love drove people to madness. The deadliest of all deadly things: It kills you both when you have it and when you don't.

I was really unsure at this book at first. From the first few chapters it just seemed like a mixture of The Hunger Games and Uglies. Both really good books/series in my eyes. So I thought that it was just going to be a rip off. How stupid I was.

Delirium is like nothing else I've read (which is rich considering I just said it reminded me of something). I think the idea for this book is genius and I'm unsure why its never been done before. In it love is bad. It infects you and makes your mind not your own. You don't think clearly, you cant stand to be away from the other person and you will anything to keep them safe. So what do they do to keep a hold on everyone and make sure no one is opinionated or has a mind of their one? they cure you. 

When you turn 18 you undergo surgery that will remove your ability to love, thus leaving you a mindless zombie that will say and do anything the people in charge tell you to, the only problem is it doesn't always work, something Lena knows all too well. Ever since she was little all she's ever dreamed about is being cured. And when she was 6, her mother having committing suicide because of love, her mind was made up even more. 

But the day she went for her assessment, her life changed. It was the day she met Alex. She thought she was safe around him, he has the scars and he promised her he'd been cured. Until she began to fall for him and him for her, he couldn't lie any more and told her the truth about where he came from.

At first that mattered, but then it didn't. They spent more and more time together, falling into a deep love. Lena began to change, be the person she was destined to be without rule. And when she did her character grew and blossomed so quick it was hard to believe it was the same person. Her and Alex are near to busted on a handful of occasions but it not until Lena finally get paired do they get hit with the harsh reality of the word they live in and the rules they are suppose to follow. But everything changes when they plan to make a run for it. For the worst.

Lauren Oliver manages to grip you at every turn with this books. Her characters are well thought out, described and written. The world she creates is wonderful. To the point where I found myself wishing I was there a few times (haha silly). This book has something everyone can relate to. That love feeling. The feeling of not being able to think straight or eat because you are so in love that you cant focus on anything else. And the feeling when it all crumbles down around you.

“And now I know why they invented words for love, why they had to: It's the only thing that can come close to describing what I feel in that moment, the baffling mixture of pain and pleasure and fear and joy, all running sharply through me at once.” 

Delirium

Author: Lauren Oliver 

Series: Delirium #2

Genres: Dystopian, Science Fiction | Young Adult

Release Date: February 28th 2012

Publishers: Harper Collins

No. Pages: 329

Source: Borrowed

Rating: 

Buy From: Amazon | Book Depository | Barnes and Noble | Waterstones

I’m pushing aside
the memory of my nightmare,
pushing aside thoughts of Alex,
pushing aside thoughts of Hana
and my old school,
push,
push,
push,
like Raven taught me to do.
The old life is dead.
But the old Lena is dead too.
I buried her.
I left her beyond a fence,
behind a wall of smoke and flame.

This books picks up directly where Delirium left off with Lena on the run. At the end of Delirium she escaped but it came at a price, Alex's life. In order for Lena to be safe he had to sacrifice himself so that should would have enough time to jump over the fence, something that I have to admit I never saw coming.

She stumbles upon the people in the 'wilds' and is instantly taken under their wing. She's left fighting her grief of the death of Alex and losing everything she knew and loved.

Its set in two section labelled 'now and then'. Then tells the story of how Lena made her way to the wilds, the people who helped her adjust, nurse her back to health and later became her new family. You see from the people of the wilds point of view and the struggles they go through all because they refused to conform. The leader of the people is Raven. A mother figure to them all, someone who is there to comfort you but won't spare your feelings if you've done something wrong or are full of self pity. (I really liked her charater)

An now. Now is set in New York where Lena is a undercover resistance operative.  While on a mission she finds herself draw to a boy named Julian. While tailing him she finds her self captured, locked up in a cell with him for days by a group of people known as the savages. The time was an eye opener for both of them. Mainly Julian, who is learning that maybe everything he was taught, everything he believed in, could have been a lie. While Lena is learning that maybe she could love again.

this books is very different from the Deliruim. The characters are more harsh and blunt and the cause more important. Lena not only comes out of her shell a lot more but has grown up. At times it was predictable, but oddly not in a bad way.  Lauren Oliver truly does have a gift at story telling.

I loved it and I cant wait to read Requiem.