Book Review: Delirium by Lauren Oliver

Delirium, by Lauren Oliver
Release Date: February 1, 2011
Publisher: Harper Teen
Pages: 440
Received: ARC given to me by a reviewer
Peer pressure rating: 3.5 out of 5 stars 
My rating: 2 out of 5 stars
Author's Page
Amazon Page 
Goodreads Page

Summary

Lena is anxiously counting down the days until her scheduled procedure that will remove the threat of the illness deliria. Before the procedure, love drove people to madness and even death. Lena never questioned her world or the requirement to undergo the procedure. Until she meets Alex and everything she thought she knew is called into question.

Review

I am writing this review from a secret underground bunker. Why? Because I , um, didn’t love this book. I’m sorry! Really, I’m just as disappointed as you are. I read this book back in early September before I had ever heard anything about it. I didn’t know it was part of a trilogy and I certainly didn’t know it was “The Next Big Book” that would sweep the YA world. But it was an ARC! One of my first and I really, really wanted to love it.

But I didn’t love it. I liked it. Most reviewers have mentioned Lauren Oliver’s beautiful writing, and it really is beautiful. She writes like seasoned pro.  I read her sentences and thought that here is a woman who was truly born to write.

But, as beautifully constructed the sentences may have been, they added up to a story that just didn’t do it for me. I personally gravitate more toward the faster-paced books. I like to be grabbed by a story immediately. Delirium is definitely not a fast-paced book. At over four hundred pages and only the introductory part of a projected trilogy, the pacing of this story is, perhaps expectedly, sloooow. I felt every one of those 400+ pages.

The entire story follows Lena as she very gradually comes to terms with the realities of her dystopian world. This is to be expected. It is the first book in a dystopian trilogy, so naturally the first book is the “awakening” part of the story. It may just be me, but I often find these books boring. I want to get to the action! I want to see the main character fight against the dystopian society. I don’t want to spend an entire book watching them hesitate back and forth between the-world-is-good/the-world-is-bad when I the reader already know the world is definitely bad (hey, it’s a dystopian!).

Especially when they do this over the course of 400+ pages. Despite the fact that the writing is beautiful to read, I felt like screaming at Lena to figure it out already. There wasn’t any question that Lena would eventually turn against her society (she has to; there would be nothing to write in the rest of the trilogy if she just went along with things), so it was especially frustrating to spend so much time reading about her indecision. I also had a hard time liking and connecting with Lena as a result of this.

While there were a few truly shocking and notable scenes (particularly the spectacular ending!), by the end of the book, we know very little that we didn’t already know from the jacket description. I just don’t think that should be the case in such a lengthy book. To me, that indicates that the book could have been shortened considerably, and I think I would have enjoyed this book more if that had been the case.

My other quibble is that as a dystopian, this one didn’t hold up for me. I’ve been around the block when it comes to dystopians, and unfortunately Delirium just didn’t have what it takes to meet my criteria for an impressive dystopian. What makes the great dystopians (1984, The Lord of the Flies, Brave New World, Utopia, etc) so poignant is that they don’t just imagine a horrible society that is possible, but they connect it to what is happening right now. The propaganda, government surveillance, and silencing of dissent found in 1984 weren’t just terrifying because they could happen. They were terrifying because they were already happening and they were well within human nature to happen as he wrote.

1984 simply took what already was and expanded it by giving it new technological outlets and imagining how what is currently happening could evolve if given just a slight nudge and just a tiny bit more time. Those connections were drawn with startling clarity. The reader could see the progression exactly and that progression was not only clear, but also completely believable. You’re left with warnings of not only what to keep an eye out for in the future, but what you should be looking for going on around you right now. This is what makes a dystopian so scary and effective.

I found this feature lacking in Delirium. I didn’t feel like I really understood how the society went from where we are now to where things were in Lena’s world. No connections were really drawn to what is happening now, so I felt very disconnected from the world Oliver created. I also can’t imagine an entire society of people willingly undergoing brain surgery to become, effectively, lobotomized just so they no longer feel love. Why would someone do that? I wouldn’t do that. Would you do that?

I could understand something like the premise of the movie The Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind where people would willingly give up select painful memories, but to deny oneself the entire possibility and experience of love? Forever? It sounds like this was a government-speared progression, but I don’t understand why the government would want this. What are they gaining? Why did they go about gaining whatever it is they wanted in this manner?

I just have a very difficult time understanding why and how a society would choose to develop in that direction and Oliver’s explanations were not adequate enough for me in this regard. Giving the benefit of the doubt, this may be explained further in the second and third books as Lena discovers more about her world. This would be helpful, but for me it would be a little too late. It makes sense that she would discover more truths as time went on, but I would have benefited from more of a foundation earlier on so I could better envision the world.

Finally, I did not connect with the characters or the romance between Lena and Alex. I understood it, and it was, thankfully, not the immediate love-at-first-sight type of romance. But I was never captivated by it. I didn’t care if they kissed, I wasn’t pulling for their relationship to succeed, and I just never felt that squee-inducing something.  I can’t put my finger on why. Maybe it was because I was frustrated with Lena. Maybe it was because, while he was nice, Alex wasn’t someone who captured my interest. He didn’t make me swoon.

Overall, I liked this book well enough, but it didn’t capture me and I may not read the sequels. I’ve seen so many positively glowing reviews for this book, so it seems I am definitely in the minority. In fact, I think I’ve only read one or two four star reviews and nothing lower than that. I’d say if you think the premise sounds appealing to you and you don’t mind a slower-paced book then give this one a try.Otherwise, if you're like me, you may find this book a little tedious with too much investment of time and not enough payout.

Peer Pressure Rating: 

My Rating:

 Explanation of rating system: Star Rating Key 

Alternative viewpoints:
Bookworm1858 didn't fall in love with Delirium
Supernatural Snark is deliriously in love with Delirium

Looking for something similar? You might like: 

My Delirium cover review (to find out why I put the ARC cover in this post)
The Adoration of Jenna Fox, by Mary E. Pearson

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