BOOK REVIEW: DELIRIUM by LAUREN OLIVER

Title:  DELIRIUM
Author:   LAUREN OLIVER
Publisher:  Harper Teen
Pages:  441 pages (hardcover)
Acquired:  Digital Edition for review from NetGalley

RATING:    4 OUT OF 5 NUMMY NUM ALEX STARS!!!

Description from Goodreads:

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

REVIEW:

Well I really enjoyed Delirium.  Admittedly I was a little hesitant as I had just finished reading Matched by Allie Condie and hadnt been overly impressed by it.  And to start, the similarities in the plot were very close.  Though the similarities in plot were there - the writing style and the overall "feel" of Delirium really captured me and I was easily drawn in to the world of a life without love - love being an illness - and the struggle for those who find it.

Lena (Magdalena) lives in a world where love is a disease and the cure is given once you turn 18.  She is a few months off her 18th birthday. The cure is just around the corner.......but then she meets Alex......and her world as she has always known it gets shaken up beyond her wildest dreams.

Lena has a best friend, Hana, who is a touch on the rebellious side and always willing to live outside her required square of life!  Lena sticks by the rules, not wanting to shake life up for herself whilst living with her Aunt Carol and cousins. Her own mother had succumbed to the amor deliria nervosa (delirium) disease and had apparently taken her own life!

When Alex enters her world, she fights against her emotions, the rules and many around her.  Can she survive the disease long enough to get the cure? Or will it take hold and change her world forever?

Delirium was packed with action, suspense, forbidden love and a whole new look at a loveless society. The dystopian genre has certainly come out in full force and Delirium certainly packed a few good POW's - and of course an ending that leaves you hanging and wanting more.

ENJOY!

MARISSA