Book Review: Delirium trilogy by Lauren Oliver

You can’t be happy unless you’re unhappy sometimes

I read the Delirium trilogy, the first time back when I was completely into the whole dystopian fab and now again, when I am not that much into dystopia. But I my opinion hasn’t changed much I think about this series.

Book Review: Delirium trilogy by Lauren Oliver

Rating:


Title & Author: Delirium trilogy by Lauren Oliver
Genre: Dystopia, Romance
Release date: February 3 2011
Series: Delirium
Publisher: HarperCollins

Synopsis

In an alternate United States, love has been declared a dangerous disease, and the government forces everyone who reaches eighteen to have a procedure called the Cure. Living with her aunt, uncle, and cousins in Portland, Maine, Lena Haloway is very much looking forward to being cured and living a safe, predictable life. She watched love destroy her mother and isn’t about to make the same mistake.

But with ninety-five days left until her treatment, Lena meets enigmatic Alex, a boy from the “Wilds” who lives under the government’s radar. What will happen if they do the unthinkable and fall in love?

I give the Delirium trilogy by Lauren Oliver three out of five hearts because I don’t care for romances that much. The whole dystopia is more of a side thing, because Lena and Alex fall in love before she can get cured.

Lena is a naive girl, she wants to get cured and believes everything people say about Amor Deliria Nervosa, without really investigating herself. When someone says something that is not in line she immediately gets upset over it. Hana seems to be much more open to the world and allows people to have their own thoughts and questions the government. Alex is an interesting character because he has grown up knowing about the bad sides of this society. Lena does grow over the three books, by the time Requiem ends she is turned into this whiplash causing girl that doesn’t know who she wants to love. As soon as Alex is out of view and she is put with Julian in a room, she falls for him. By the end she is back with Alex again without even quitting her relationship with Julian.

During the first novel I think Alex is pretty interesting, he is the one who takes Lena for the first time to the Wilds. But during Requiem he is childish because Lena has moved on, he told her to leave him behind. Lena thought he was dead for most of Pandemonium and is very happy he is not when he turns up by the end of that book. But he doesn’t let her because he is being childish about it.

The short pieces at the beginning of each chapter from the Book of Shhh during Delerium. This helps with the world building and understanding the world but I wonder if it couldn’t have been told differently because as some point I wanted to skip them. But I was also sad when in Pandemonium they didn’t return.

Pandemonium was a bit confusing because the two different timelines are only announced by ‘Then’ and ‘Now’, at first I hadn’t even seen them and just skipped over them. Which made me very confused. I would have made them clearer so a fast reader wouldn’t be able to skip over them.

I liked Hana’s parts in Requiem even though I thought Lauren could have introduced her POV already back in Delerium. It was a little bit jarring at first, but soon I saw that I could learn a lot from her. Hana was very interesting because she is the only person of the main group who is Cured during the series and I don’t think her cure worked well.

Overall I think the series is okay, but nothing special. I don’t care that much about the world because it has eliminated a thing that I feel is still really important for a well rounded world, love. Even the romantic relationships that do exist aren’t very special or good.

TV-movie

When I heard there was going to be a tv series on this novel I wanted to see it, but when it never got there I started to research it. It was supposed to have Emma Roberts and Daren Kagasoff as the main characters. So where did it end up?

They turned the pilot into a tv movie and streamed it through Hulu. It turned out that Fox declined to pick the series up after the the pilot was made.

I have seen this pilot and what they put online is sort of a complete tv-movie, but I do think it is super lacking in info, world and character building.

Let me know what you thought of this book and/or tv movie!
If you have any requests for which book I should talk about next, please let me know in the comments down below.

For now, let books enrich your life!

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