Delirium by Lauren Oliver
Narrator: Sara Drew
Source: Audible
Finished: 8/22/12
Rating: 8 out of 10
Publisher: Harper Audio
Length: 11 hours, 41 minutes
Pages: 480 (print version)
Published: 2011
Challenges: 2012 Audio Book Challenge
Synopsis (from Amazon): Lena Haloway is content in her safe, government-managed society. She feels (mostly) relaxed about the future in which her husband and career will be decided, and looks forward to turning 18, when she’ll be cured of deliria, a.k.a. love. She tries not to think about her mother’s suicide (her last words to Lena were a forbidden “I love you”) or the supposed “Invalid” community made up of the uncured just beyond her Portland, Maine, border. But 95 days before her cure, Lena meets Alex, a confident and mysterious young man who makes her heart flutter and her skin turn red-hot. As their romance blossoms, Lena begins to doubt the intentions of those in power, and fears that her world will turn gray should she submit to the procedure.
Overall Impression: I felt like perhaps I was the last person on earth to have read this, but Steve informed me that he’d never even heard of it, so I felt a little better. I had fairly low expectations going in — YA hasn’t been kind to me lately, and so I didn’t want to get my hopes up, even though so many people seemed to love it. I was pleasantly surprised. The teenagers in the book behaved like actual teenagers — not teenagers who were miniature Aaron Sorkins, and not so stupid that I wanted to punch them all in the neck. The story was a little predictable, but I liked where it was going, and it made a lot of good points about the nature of love and the ways people behave. I also thought the love story was fairly realistic, with nothing too crazy and yet nothing too chaste. I loved the way that Lena was connected to her “invalid” mother, and how it made her feel broken in a lot of ways — I think this is true of many parent-child relationships, even if it’s not as unhealthy as we might think.
Positives: Better than I expected — it had quite a lot of heart and I never wanted to hit anyone.
Negatives: Not stellar — the writing was a little repetitive, and I found Alex to be a little…smooth. But that might have just been the narration.
Narration: For the most part, Drew did a good job. I didn’t love her as Alex, though. He sounded like a Backstreet Boy.
Other books I’ve read by Lauren Oliver: none
Other books I’ve listened to narrated by Sara Drew: none
Other blogger opinions:
Rhapsody in Books: “This book is for all the romantics out there, who believe in the value of love, even with its roller coaster swings of highs and lows.”
S Krishna’s Books: “[Oliver] has solidified herself in my mind as a go-to author; going forward, I’m willing to read anything she writes because I trust her judgment and her writing talent.”
Erin Reads: “Is Lena the strongest girl character ever? Of course not. But over the course of Delirium, I felt she found some strength and beliefs of her own.”
You aren’t the last person to read it, but I had at least heard of it. When the book came out with various styled covers I mentioned to a friend, and still maintain today, that the three covers that are slight variations on this one would be a very cool display all framed nicely and hanging on the wall. I do enjoy YA but for some reason the tempting cover hasn’t yet tempted me to read the book.