amor deliria nervosa

So... I am obviously no good at writing/keeping up with a blog. Especially when it's supposed to coincide with reading a book.

In other words... I finished my book...like a week ago... and didn't write a single thing about it. I'll try to do better next time. But at least I actually read my book, unlike someone else... :)

Anyway, the book. As a quick refresher, my first book was Delirium by Lauren Oliver. I'll try to review it without giving away too many spoilers, but we'll see how that goes...

As a whole, Delirium more than exceeded my expectations. Not knowing anything about the author or the book before diving head first into it, I wasn't really expecting much. Just a nice YA story about some girl in a dystopian society beating the system. However, this wasn't your typical "girl is happy in society, girl meets boy, girl realizes society is bad, girl falls in love with boy, girl and boy run away together" story. There's much more depth to the characters without making them too complex, and the descriptions of the society and how it ended up the way it is are concise and to the point. Not much time is wasted in describing the scenery or anything, and the story flows well.

To the people of Lena's world, love is a disease - "amor deliria nervosa" - and is one of the most deadly diseases. It is "the deadliest of all deadly things: It kills you both when you have it and when you don't." (p. 4). Lena believes this, and what she has been taught, and cannot wait to have the procedure to make her immune to this illness. However, like every teenager, Lena gets caught up in a rebellious streak and ends up wanting to fight the system because she begins to doubt it. The book chronicles her journey from unthinking teenager who believes everything she's told to a thinking individual capable of making her own decisision and fighting for her right to love (after falling in love herself, of course).

The ending of the book is not entirely predictable either, which is nice. And definitely not common in a YA novel. It's also interesting that, although Delirium is the first of a trilogy, the novel could also be a standalone. I definitely want to read the next two books in the series when they come out, but had Lauren Oliver decided to not write the other two, I'd also be ok with that.

I would definitely recommend this book for anyone who enjoys YA novels, but wants to read something a little different from the typical ones that are out there right now.



And now, onto the next book!

--Ashley