(Review) Delirium (Delirium, #1) - Lauren Oliver

Title: Delirium (Delirium, #1)
Author: Lauren Oliver
Format: Trade Paperback
ISBN: 9780061726835
Publisher: HarperCollins
Date Published: February 7th 2012

Summary (from Goodreads)

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.

Review:

Interesting concept but I felt like the whole "love is a disease" immediately just jumped to "love is a crime" and there wasn't any back story in the whole novel that provided any insight. Aside from snippets of fictional references to books that talk about the deliria, there wasn't anything concrete explanation on how did this kind of thinking escalate?

I think the use of such medium (fictional references to explain more things) was very good, but many of them fell empty and flat for me. Lauren Oliver does have a knack for putting the right words together to create a good atmosphere and I definitely enjoyed the rich detail she provided. It worked really well with the whole story, considering what they're trying to kill here is the ability to feel love and affection to anything. 

Character-wise, I am particularly happy at Lena's growth from being very scared and dependent to what she's been fed to someone who can finally see the other side of the story. There's a good enough pool of characters that provided really good momentum to the story, and i feel like her friendship with Hana is purposely dragged out for use in the next installment. I can just feel it. She has a lot more room for improvement as a main character but it's been good so far. I only wish it didn't end so abruptly for Alex. I'm dying to read what happens next.

I'm reading Pandemonium as soon as I can and I only wish Lauren Oliver would provide more background to it. As i've said, it's very very interesting and has a lot of potential.

Rating: ♚♚♚♚♚