eBook Delirium
Read eBook Í Delirium á ✓ gwairsoft Ï ❰Read❯ ➲ Delirium Author Lauren Oliver – Gwairsoft.co.uk Ninety five days and then I’ll be safeI wonder whether the procedure will hurtI want to get it over withIt’s hard to be patientIt’s hard not to be afraid while I’m still uncured though so farThe old days love drove people to madnessThe deadliest of all deadly things It kills you both when you have it and when you don’t 25 3 I hate skin; I hate bones and bodies I want to curl up inside of him and be carried there foreverEarlier this year I fell in love with Lauren Oliver's debut Before I Fall So understandably I was very excited to hear about her next book Delirium A dystopian world where love is a disease written by the clearly very talented Oliver? Yeah I can get behind that I settled in to wait the long cruel months until the February release date when I got a surprise package in the mail from the Polish Outlander her ARC of Delirium Imagine my delight I held off reading it for a few days just to give myself some distance from Matched which has a very similar concept and which I'd just finished But I didn't want to wait too long so similarities be damned I went ahead and read itI'm going to try to not keep comparing this to Matched which isn't fair Matched had its own review after all but I do have to say that though each is its own thing the similarities are pretty strong and my reaction to each was the same I wanted so much than I gotLest you think this review is wholly negative let me start with the things I did like I love the concept and think it has the potential to be really powerful and fascinating There is a flow to it most of the time that kept me reading even when I was frustrated by other things And there are these moments that shine through these beautiful little word gems that Oliver creates that reminds me of why I loved Before I Fall and why I was so excited to read thisButBut I was so very very excited for this that I think I was even let down by it than Matched which was also something I was eager for Before I Fall was fresh and compelling and I felt like so much of Oliver so much heart and so much work went into it I didn't feel the same about Delirium I'm not going to accuse Oliver of selling out or hopping on a trend but I do wonder how much passion was behind this story It seemed sort of sloppy and yes I know I read an ARC and that may account for some of it But there were so many inconsistencies and uestions I had that I couldn't ever commit I could only go along so far until logic would intrude I would be forced to ask myself things like If Lena was just bitten badly in the leg by a dog why does Alex kissing her seem to erase not only any pain but even any mention of the bite until it's like an afterthought? How does her family not notice that either a she's wearing pants in the middle of sweltering August and limping or b she's not wearing pants and the scar is showing and she's limping? Because it has to be one of those 2 things And though the cure may not make them care for her safety so much it doesn't take away their suspicious natures Also setting aside the fact that she walked home how did they just walk home? Just like that With raiding parties everywhere and her bitten terribly they just strolled on home illegally down the street? How do they get away with all the shit they get away with in this repressive society? Hmm Things like this were peppered throughout the story and they just made it nearly impossible to buy in to what was going onSmaller things too like words and phrases and things we have now that I don't see any use for or don't believably buy would be in the world Oliver created And of course the much bigger things like how did all this the discovery of the deliria the cure the restrictions the beliefs all of it come to be? I know it may not be what Lauren intended but with such a seemingly science influenced dystopia I need some good scientific reasoning some evidence real or gov't created that backs everything up some explanation or plausible scenario that lets this total overhaul of human beliefs and passions come to be in a matter of 60 years or so That's a very VERY brief period of time for such a huge and total change to take place so I need reality to intrude a little I need either some hints of a really big conspiracy or something so huge and devastating that people as a whole almost go into a state of shock or numbness that allows this to happen Because as a general rule people don't willingly submit to mass lobotomies or the eradication of their feelings for the people they love or hate without some serious something acting as a catalyst Petty strife and crimes of passion may make you think of Eternal Sunshining your mind spotless but in an abstract angry wouldn't it be lovely kind of way and not a bring on the procedure kind of way Some science some history some dogma some thing beyond the sometimes eerie sometimes meh snippets of texts that start every chapter would have gone a long way toward helping me willingly suspend my disbeliefBut even if I could have set the worldbuilding and believability aside no easy task in a concept novel like this for it to be saved the characters and plot would have had to really shineBut I felt like everything was a little wooden a little cardboard a little less than believable and real The love interest Alex was okay enough but why should Lena care about him and why should I? I understand why he cares about Lena but that's not something we really find out until Lena is already head over heels infectedin love and I don't understand how she got there As a reader in order to take that leap with a character we need to know why we need to feel it All I got was that he was a boy who payed attention to her he winked he smiled he seemed a bit smarmy and she's hooked Now yes I get that's enough for a teenage infatuation and it may be heightened by the taboo nature of it I even get that his easy manner reminded Lena of her mother who was incurableBut for Lena who has always been terrified of the deliria which tore her world apart and who has always looked forward to her procedure and been so afraid of stepping out of the box who is afraid to say to even hear the word love for her to completely flip and become reckless and passionate and all the other stuff that comes with being the things she's always fearedhmm The only way this really works for me the only thing that would make me buy it and appreciate it was if it took the slant that the deliria was real and she'd become infected Otherwise I have no choice but to think this is a cheesy run of the mill YA romance where one look from a guy makes a girl throw her entire being out the window and become a swooning fluttery mess with no relation to the person she once was and who would die for the roguish boy she knows nothing about Which is apparently what every teenage girl is secretly waiting to doMaybe the deliria is real Reviewed December 19th 2010
kindle ã à Lauren Oliver
Ninety five days and then I’ll be safeI wonder whether the procedure will hurtI want to get it over withIt’s hard to be patientI I have said this before and I’ll say it again I have no problem with an implausible story vehicle As long as the ride is good and it relates a moral or philosophical valueBut where the line is drawn is when the world isn’t consistent and in the confines of that world things don’t make senseThat’s my limit That’s when I start getting frustrated and annoyed And it’s not because an author tried something new okay? Lauren Oliver is AMAZING She is a great author who is erudite and verbose and interesting to listen to I’ve seen her speak live and frankly to an audience and her ability to relate to them and express herself is fantasticBut this novel still didn’t work for me Delirium unfortunately failed for me Which is saddening because Lauren Oliver is a good author and I know with Delirium she was reaching out and trying something different I just wish it had been successfulNow here’s where it all buggered up1 Inconsistent world buildingThe main protagonist says the word “love” twice Once in conversation and the second time mentally Love is a concept that’s stigmatized to such an extreme degree that even the whispered word “sympathizer” is verboten Yet the main protagonist SAYS it to her aunt – that she LOVES children It just doesn’t make sense And she’s wandering around with Alex and making out with him in public like the conseuence for that is a slap on the wrist Look she lives in a highly autocratic world where even a hint of the disease will land you in prison – and she makes out with her boyfriend in the middle of public places2 CharacterizationI loved the characterization of Lena I thought it was accurate and realistic It’s the characterization of Alex that left me hollow and empty He felt like a place holder Simply a textbook demonstration of today’s YA expectations of a love interest Devoted stalkerish sad back story Oliver’s love interest in Before I Fall was so much dynamic even though he comprised a relatively small part in the story Alex felt like a definition of desirable love interest instead of actually being a person Lena fell in love with3 WritingI never thought I’d say this because in my mind Oliver is – and always will be – a fantastic writer But there were aspects of the writing in this book that were obvious cliche and simplistic For example Lena is emotionally stunted but it’s an obvious parallel Whenever she feels intense emotion she blames it on the air conditioning or weather etc She is the result of a childhood of emotional detachment – but not really – and this is where it gets personal for meBecause if you don’t religiously read my reviews then you wouldn’t know that my son was almost diagnosed with Attachment Disorder Because when my first son was born I was one of those weird religious people that ascribed to books like Baby Wise etc For the first six months of his life he barely looked at me in the eye Attachment disorder babies are those that from their infancy do not experience consistent loving care They are children that learn early on that they are not truly loved and this results in a wide swath of behavioral and emotional problemsLena is the result of a childhood that had a mother who loves her and responded accordingly to her needs but other children in the society didn’t receive this – something that I felt was a huge cope out What about the characterization of a person who wasn’t loved? Who was a product of the system? I feel like this wasn’t examined enough – wasn’t inspected enough Like it was handled by someone who just assumed that children would still reflect some modicum of normality after being raised in a world where they aren’t being lovingly raised by people properly attached to them And the assumption that you can have attachment without love – it’s mind boggling because I kind of feel like she was out of her depth on this oneIt’s not Oliver’s fault But what I wanted from this is a deeper understanding of society from the point of view of someone willing to delve into a harder grittier realistic story Someone willing to ask the tough uestions and write the tough characterization Instead the novel glosses over a lot of those things and thus felt cheap and shallowThis review can also be found on our blog Cuddlebuggery Book Blog
Lauren Oliver à Delirium kindle
DeliriumT’s hard not to be afraid while I’m still uncured though so far the deliria hasn’t touched me yetStill I worryThey say that in December 2011 reviewI adored Delirium when I first read and reviewed it which was back in February I had limited experience with dystopia only having read Matched The Hunger Games and Uglies but Delirium made it one of favourite genres I’ve come across many young dystopian novels since then and having re read Delirium I can safely say that it is still one of my favourites and one of the best books I’ve read this yearAlthough Delirium is a dystopian novel it is first and foremost a love story; it doesn’t pretend to be anything else At eighteen years old citizens of the USA legally must undergo a procedure – a “cure” – that will result in the them being unable to love anyone ever again whether it may be a partner friend or family When Alex enters her life Lena must fight for the right to love whomever she wishesOne of the things that I didn’t mention in my previous review that really struck me about the novel is the writing Lauren Oliver has a talent for using the most beautiful rich language and imagery to capture a moment perfectly When I’m reading novels I try to picture the scenes in my head and sometimes it becomes blurry I try to focus on it but the author hasn’t provided enough detail for me to do so Lauren Oliver is the complete opposite She expertly describes every single scene so that the image in my head comes out crystal clear from the description of the setting to Lena’s emotions “The water is an enormous mirror tipped with and pink and gold from the sky In that single blazing moment as I came around the bend the sun – curved over the dip of the horizon like a solid gold archway – lets out its final winking rays of light shattering the darkness of the water turning everything white for a fraction of a second and then falls away sinking dragging the pink and the red and the purple out of the sky with it all the colour bleeding away instantly and leaving only darkAlex was right It was gorgeous – one of the best I’ve ever seen Another thing I did not pay enough attention to before because I was eagerly rushing trough the story is the small fragments of society – the uotation of official documents rules and regulations children’s songs and poetry which help the reader to mentally construct and imagine the world that Lauren Oliver has created Even though the story mostly focuses on Lena and Alex’s relationship and the things they discover about each other we’re constantly aware that they live in a restrictive and severely controlled society Delirium is a wonderfully emotional heartbreaking love story set in a dystopian future It’s both a gritty and mellow experience If you’ve not yet jumped on to the dystopian bandwagon I’d suggest that reading Delirium is a very good start indeed “Love the deadliest of all deadly things it kills you both when you have it and when you don’t”Original February 2011 reviewThis book has 400 pages and I finished in less than 24 hours That already should tell you how much I loved it I found Delirium to be a mixture of The Hunger Games and Matched The premise of Delirium is that this particular dystopian society sees love or amor deliria nervosa as a disease that needs to be cured by an operation on the brain Lena our protagonist is nearly 18 years old the age reuirement for having the operation and is nervous yet excited about her upcoming “procedure” until she meets Alex Delirium is similar to Matched in that citizens do not have a say in who they spend the rest of their life with The government “Officials” in Matched “Regulators” in Delirium choose who a person is “matched” with and there is no freedom of choice However this particular society goes even further and attempts to ensure that a person will never love again This according to the Regulators will make the world a better place everyone will be happier and safer because love is nothing but destructive I personally found Delirium to be much heartbreaking and emotional than Matched and the storyline took a lot less time to develop The characters' rebellion and resistance to control as with all dystopian novels begins a lot earlier in the novel and this is where the similarities to The Hunger Games begin This is where we witness the brutality and cruelty of those in charge of these future societiesHowever all three novels are fantastic in their own way and Delirium offers yet another uniue look at how a dystopian society could be It made me want to read even dystopian literature and I did not feel like I was reading recycled material I definitely recommend this to people who are already fans of young adult dystopian literature And if you haven’t read it before? Do it You’ll become addicted and emotionally involved in this wonderfully exciting but terrifying genre I cannot wait to read Pandemonium the second novel in the seriestrilogy I’m just sad that I have to wait until 2012 Thank you Hodder for sending me this book to reviewDystopian or Not Dystopian? Dystopian I also reviewed this book over on Pretty Books