Review: Delirium by Lauren Oliver

Delirium
Lauren Oliver
Series: Delirium, #1
Release Date: February 1st, 2011
Publisher: HarperTeen
Number of Pages: 480
Source: Bought
Rating: 2.5 stars or a very low 3 stars

Before scientists found the cure, people thought love was a good thing. They didn’t understand that once love -- the deliria -- blooms in your blood, there is no escaping its hold. Things are different now. Scientists are able to eradicate love, and the government demands that all citizens receive the cure upon turning eighteen. Lena Holoway has always looked forward to the day when she’ll be cured. A life without love is a life without pain: safe, measured, predictable, and happy.

But with ninety-five days left until her treatment, Lena does the unthinkable: She falls in love.

I fell asleep while reading this book. True story, ask anyone (and by anyone, I mean my husband. I hope you're not able to ask just anyone and they can assure you that I fell asleep while reading this. That'd just be creepy). I settled down in bed, all cozied up, preparing to read more of Delirium because I've been putting it off for much too long, hoping to get a big chunk out of the way.

I think I lasted about thirty minutes before Delirium used its superpowers and put me right to sleep. Seriously, I think this book may have some special sleeping powder instilled in its pages. Either that or it's just really freaking boring. But I'll give Delirium the benefit of the doubt and go the sleeping powder route.

But the thing about Delirium is, I don't think it could have exciting even if something actually happened throughout the first three hundred pages, because the subject matter was just dull and uninteresting to me. I knew before going into Delirium that it'd be all about love, and how dangerous it is, but oh no! The main character finds out love is really a beautiful thing and shall be cherished, and that..

Crap! I fell asleep just thinking about Delirium this time! Anyway, while I did find the dystopian world in Delirium thoroughly interesting at first, and the concept of love as a disease original and fascinating, I soon found that this dystopian world is similar to most undeveloped dystopian worlds on the YA market today, and it almost seemed to follow a cliché dystopian checklist:

1: Does your world have an implausible story that is never actually given any depth as to how it came to be? Check!
2: Is your world inconsistent and full of plot holes? (ie: Saying that word 'love' can get you locked up in an instant, and our main character claims she's only said love once, yet she said that her aunt loves children early on in the novel?) Check!
3: Is your world full of ... *looks around* secrets? Check! (This seems to be a necessity in anything YA, and normally I wouldn't have a problem with it if every damn secret weren't reminiscent of each other.)
4: Do your characters fall in ... insta-love? *shudders* Check!

and the list goes on and on.

I see that many of my friends have read Delirium and have really enjoyed it, but unfortunately, I found it to be a bit too same-old, same-old and predictable for my tastes, and that's coming from someone who doesn't even read many dystopians. However, the last hundred pages or so were interesting, and the book ended in a big cliffhanger, so I will read Pandemonium, but I just don't know how I'll feel about it when I'm just not interested in the story or romance. (But the writing was pretty! So there's that, I guess.)