My Rating
My Review
Delirium was
fantastic. I loved it. The story was really good and I felt that this book was
a great premise to the beginning of the entire series. In this book, love,
something that seems rather amazing to all of us, is seen as a disease. Its
seen as something that one can have a cure for because it’s the root of all
problems and without it, things will be better. Maybe in some ways, things were
better. People didn’t fight over love, over emotion essentially. But their
lives were devoid of that spark that love could bring you. The thing is, they
all actually wanted it.
Lena and Alex
are our two main characters. I have to say, I didn’t really like Lena in the
beginning. I felt that she was too afraid to live, and that just rubs me the
wrong way. Still, I like how the author is able to convey her fear and all the
reasons for her being afraid. It was a little bit repetitive though, I must
have read Lena’s reasons for being afraid many many times. I loved her
character development. She transformed from a girl who was so afraid to love,
to a girl who couldn’t live without love. Who did everything for love. And that
touched me. It was the depth of love and the power of love that was the message
conveyed through everything Lena did. It was beautiful.
Alex on the other
hand, was someone we didn’t know much about. I would have liked to understand
Alex a little better. It’s nice that he’s an enigma, which makes him just a bit
more attractive. Still, I would love to know why he feels the way he does, what
made him that way. I do think there are side stories of him, so I’m definitely
going to check those out. His character development here wasn’t fantastic, he
doesn’t develop per se. Because he started out believing in love, and I think
there wasn’t much space for him to develop.
Yes, I have
to admit, there were many parts of the book that was draggy. But Lauren Oliver
made up for it with the love story she wrote. I think the most beautiful part
of this book was how she captured love in it's simplest form. Everything she
said, it just rings a bell of when you first find someone, when you first fall
in love with that person and it reminds you of how beautiful love can be. Maybe
it's also because of my own experiences and also because Lena's the same age as
me and hence I can identify rather well.
And oh gosh,
at the end, what he did for her, that told me he loved her in ways that nothing
else could. And while the action only came towards the end, I loved the build
up to it. I loved how they fell in love. The ways she described how being in
love felt was just so real. I love the way she captures teenage angst. When I
was reading about how Lena felt love was like, and all the things that love
made her feel, I was just yes yes yes, that's exactly what I felt!
It's not the best
romance in the world, but there's something so endearing about it. It was so
sweet and I just found myself rooting for them. They weren't my favorite
characters, but I adored them together.
I know
there's a lot of people that say it's unrealistic that she would kiss him in
public if there were so huge consequences. Ok to be honest, I didn't even
realize that. But on further thought, I just feel that sometimes when you're so
young and you have so strong feelings, it just spills out. You heck the consequences
because you just can't imagine not kissing him right there and then.
And one of
the parts I loved most? It was when she said, "It [love] will kill me. And
I don't care." I just felt that little bit summed up love so simply yet it
captured the essence. When you're in love, sometimes you just don't care about
anything. You don't care about the consequences, all the things that could go
wrong, all you can think about is how right it feels. And there was another
part where she said how happy she was. How love brought her happiness. And that
was beautiful too. You see, all of Lena's life, she was brought up thinking
love was a disease, that it had to be cured. Yet, when it happened to her, when
she fell in love, everything went away. And only love mattered. I know
she’s young, I know she fell in love really easily and really quickly. But
still, love comes at unexpected times, and maybe that’s the beauty of it.
The ending broke my heart. Still, it was for the best. I
think when the book ended, I put it down and I started to cry. By how much they
loved each other, how much he was willing to sacrifice for her. That touched me
to the core.
There was one part I had a little bit of an issue with. It
was the pacing. I honestly got a bit confused here and there because I didn’t
know what was the timeframe like. Everything seemed to happen together that it
got a little confusing. Its like one moment she’s preparing for something, the
next we skip forward a few days because she has gotten an epiphany about the situation
or something. Still, it was just a small annoyance and it didn’t really detract
from my enjoyment of the book.
Delirium was fantastic. I loved it. The plot, the
characters, and especially, the love. I would read it again in a heartbeat,
just to cry over the sweet scenes.
Edit: After reading
the rest of the series, I must say they were a bit of a letdown compared to
this book. This wasn’t the most interesting or the most action packed, but it
showed what love could be like, and that made it so beautiful.