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Summary
Summary
Lauren Oliver's powerful New York Times bestselling novel Delirium--the first in a dystopian trilogy--presents a world as terrifying as George Orwell's 1984 and a romance as true as Romeo & Juliet.
In an alternate United States, love has been declared a dangerous disease, and the government forces everyone who reaches eighteen to have a procedure called the Cure. Living with her aunt, uncle, and cousins in Portland, Maine, Lena Haloway is very much looking forward to being cured and living a safe, predictable life. She watched love destroy her mother and isn't about to make the same mistakes.
But with ninety-five days left until her treatment, Lena meets enigmatic Alex, a boy from the Wilds who lives under the government's radar. What will happen if they do the unthinkable and fall in love?
Delirium received starred reviews from Kirkus and School Library Journal, and was named a Best Book of the Year by USA Today, Kirkus, Amazon.com, YALSA, and the Chicago Public Library and was selected as one of NPR's Top 100 Best Ever Teen Novels.
Supports the Common Core State Standards
Author Notes
Lauren Oliver (born Laura Schechter) was born in New York City in 1982. She received degrees in philosophy and literature from the University of Chicago in 2004. She graduated the MFA program at NYU in 2008. She worked briefly as an editorial assistant and an assistant editor at Razorbill, a division of Penguin Books. She left to become a full-time writer in 2009. Her first novel, Before I Fall, was published in 2010. Her other works include Delirium, Liesl and Po, and Pandemonium. Her title's Panic, Vanishing Girls and The Shrunken Head made The New York Times Best Seller List. She made the Hollywood Reporter's '25 Most Powerful Authors' 2016 list, entering at number 23.
(Bowker Author Biography)
Reviews (5)
School Library Journal Review
Gr 9 Up-According to the Government's official publication, The Book of Shhh (The Safety, Health, and Happiness Handbook), humans, if unregulated, are cruel, capricious, violent, miserable, and selfish. "It is only after their instincts and basic emotions have been controlled that they can be happy, generous, and good." The Government also mandates that all citizens, upon their 18th birthday, submit to an operation to control the spread of amor deliria nervosa, the disease of love. Lena, 17, eagerly awaits the day she can show off her badge of honor: a three-pointed scar behind her left ear. Then she will be paired with a boy chosen for her by the evaluators and live happy and safe forever. That is until she meets Alex, an "uncured." Lena and Alex spend her remaining 95 days together as much as possible. Lena comes to understand that the regulators are not there to protect the people, but rather to control them, and that her mother didn't commit suicide, but was thrown into the crypts because she was a resistor. With only hours left before her scheduled procedure, Lena, with Alex's love and help, decides to follow her mother's footsteps. Lauren Oliver's science fiction thriller (HarperCollins, 2011) is a fast-paced, edge-of-your-seat page-turner. Her writing is strong and filled with beautiful metaphors that enhance the darkness of Lena's life. Sarah Drew's narration breathes life into each character, especially Lena. She skips seamlessly between every conceivable teenage emotion: confusion, snarky sarcasm, whispered guilt, and the breathless bliss of first love. A must-have.-Cheryl Preisendorfer, Twinsburg City Schools, OH (c) Copyright 2011. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Publisher's Weekly Review
In her sophomore novel, Oliver (Before I Fall) presents an intriguing but disappointing thought experiment, set in a dystopian future in which American borders are sealed and civil order is enforced by regulation, vigilantism, and "the procedure," a coming-of-age lobotomy that excises amor deliria nervosa, or love. Nearly 18, Lena Haloway welcomes the prospect; her mother underwent three unsuccessful procedures and eventually committed suicide, so Lena deeply believes that love equals suffering. Still, there's a subversiveness to her thoughts and actions, from nurturing the motherless child Gracie to reading Romeo and Juliet because it is "beautiful," not the cautionary tale it's presented as. When a strange, handsome boy begins to intrude on her life, strictly against the regulations, the "beauty" of that tragic trope begins to play out swiftly and relentlessly. The prose is accomplished, and the Portland, Maine, setting wonderfully evoked. However, Oliver's nightmare future lacks a visceral punch, primarily because of the weakness of the world-building. Her America has undergone a seismic shift, but the economic, religious, and cultural ramifications are all but ignored. Ages 14-up. (Feb.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.
Horn Book Review
In a near-future United States whose borders are closed to the rest of the world, the government has created a cure for the "deadly" disease amor deliria nervosa -- a.k.a. love. Following a long line of literary dystopias, Oliver depicts a controlled society in which the sanctioned way of life is bland and predictable, while human emotion is considered a dangerous element. High school senior Lena Haloway counts the days until she has the "procedure" on her eighteenth birthday, knowing it will make her "happy and safe forever." Since her incurable mother committed suicide, Lena is afraid that she, too, could succumb to the disease. However, Lena's passion for running and her close relationship with best friend Hana reveal a spirited girl beneath the fear. Lena is clearly destined to fall in love, and readers will instantly recognize amber-eyed Alex as the worthy romantic hero. The unlikely setting of Portland, Maine, proves well suited to the narrative: the growing heat and humidity of summer mirrors the rising tension, and the stirring ocean air hints at a thriving world beyond the dry, sterile community. In a thick climate of fear, Oliver spins out a suspenseful story of awakening and resistance with true love at its core. lauren adams (c) Copyright 2011. The Horn Book, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Kirkus Review
amor deliria nervosa, the chief symptoms of which are passionate feelings about anything. Poetry and contact between members of opposite sexes are forbidden; the authoritarian government rules with suspicion, violence and bureaucratically arranged marriages. As Lena, the soon-to-be-18 narrator, approaches the date of her procedure with both trepidation and relief, she meets Alex, a boy who inspires feelings that upend everything she has believed about her community and herself. Lena's gradual awakening is set against a convincing backdrop of totalitarian horror. Chilling epigraphs from the government's rewritten histories begin each chapter, providing contextual propaganda so thorough that they've even reinterpreted the Bible to suit their message. The abrupt ending leaves enough unanswered questions to set breathless readers up for volume two of this trilogy. (Science fiction. 14 up)]] Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Booklist Review
Oliver's follow-up to her smash debut, Before I Fall (2010), is another deft blend of realism and fantasy. The hook is irresistible: it's the near future, a time when love has long since been identified as a disease called amor deliria nervosa, and 17-year-old Lena is 95 days away from the operation that everyone gets to cure themselves. Can you feel the swoon coming? Enter Alex, a rakish daredevil who, as it turns out, is one of the Invalids a tribe of uncured who live on the lam in the surrounding wilderness. With the clock ticking down to her surgery, Lena is drawn into Alex's world, one of passion and freedom, while her emotionally castrated family members hope to turn her into yet another complacent zombie. Oliver's masterstroke is making a strong case for love as disease: the anxiety, depression, insomnia, and impulsive behavior of the smitten do smack of infirmity. The story bogs down as it revels in romance Alex is standard-issue perfection but the book never loses its A Clockwork Orange-style bite regarding safety versus choice.--Kraus, Daniel Copyright 2010 Booklist