The book: Delirium (Delirium #1)
The author: Lauren Oliver
The rating: 3 stars
This book was a dystopia, that's for sure. An unimaginative, derivative dystopia, whose main 'twist' (love being forbidden) isn't really a twist at all; it's a frequent feature of dystopian literature. I'd say about half of the dystopian novels I've read also have people paired up in assigned couple units: The Giver, Matched... even Brave New World's hypersexual society portrays love as something alien and wrong.
Nevertheless, I'm a huge dystopia fan; there are worse things in the genre than cookie-cutter worlds, and so that alone wouldn't ruin the book for me. However, Oliver does not find redemption on any other front. The romance between Lena and Alex is one of paper-thin instalove. Sorry, best-friend-since-childhood, I won't shift my world view one iota based on your pleas. Oh, hello boy-I-just-met-and-who-I've-been-raised-to-wholeheartedly-believe-is-dangerous, a few days with you and my entire personality has been overhauled! Secondary characters seem pulled out of cliches: evil-stepfamily (and, just like in Cinder, the youngest stepsister is the exception);* stone-hearted policemen; so-much-better-than-me best friend (to prove just how 'ordinary' our heroine is)...
The plot twists are equally trite. Oh, the future dystopian world is enclosed by a fence, outside of which there is no civilization? I wonder where I've seen that before... (for the benefit of the hypothetical reader who has never, ever read a single dystopian novel in their entire life, the answer to that seemingly-rhetorical question is, of course, everywhere.) Coupled with the old 'if you don't see the body' law of fiction, nothing Delirium threw at me came as any sort of surprise.
While there is nothing special about Delirium, I don't mean to suggest that it is an entirely terrible novel. Oliver's prose is rather enjoyable to read, even if her subject matter isn't the most stimulating. I also found the epigraphs at the start of each chapter to be a nice touch; they allow the reader to become a bit more immersed in the culture of Oliver's world, something that is otherwise too scarcely referenced.
Despite my reservations, I have already picked up the second book in the series, Pandemonium. Perhaps some of the more problematic areas of Delirium will be rectified in this second installment, although I certainly won't be holding my breath.
*Yes, technically Lena's adopted family are her cousins, not her stepsisters, but the point still stands.
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