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My first YA book in quite a while.

Delirium was an interesting concept for a book. It portrays a utopian society that is actually more dystopian. Love is forbidden and considered a disease. Adults get cured by having brain surgery at the age of 18. They then get an approved career path and match for marriage. The cure takes away your ability to feel emotions deeply, and in turn, makes it easier for people to live by a controlled set of rules. The government believes that love makes people crazy, causing war and harm to society. Some resisters, called invalids, live outside the protected boarder of the US. However, the cure doesn’t always work and some people find a way to disguise themselves, though, the consequences for resistance are brutal.

At the age of 17, Lena is living in Portland, Maine with her aunt. Her father died at a young age, and her mother took her own life after three failed attempts at the cure procedure. Lena is an impressionable teen, who is torn between order and freedom. Soon Lena meets Alex, an invalid hiding in plain sight. They quickly fall in love, and he helps Lena discover the truth about her family. Can Lena leave behind the promise of a stable future for love? She must weigh her options of living safely within walls or out in the unknown with choice.

Delirium had some nice messages, but at times it felt like it tried too hard to be deep. My takeaways were that life needs meaning. Humans want to bond with one another, and not just on a superficial level, but on a deeper level. We crave connection, and that’s not a bad thing to feel. The book showed that when something is forbidden or restricted, it only makes you want it more. It illustrated how society fears what they cannot control, and sheltering people for their own good can often backfire.

The plot was predictable at times, but there were some good twists that I didn’t see coming. The writing was very descriptive, and some of the imagery was a bit much. Being near 500 pages, the book felt a bit too long with the events happening slowly. The last hundred pages were the most action-packed. I liked the unique mix of characters and how they were developed by the end. They learn to help one another, make their own choices, and rebel in small ways.

The ending was shocking, dramatic, and a bit disappointing. I probably won’t be reading the next two books in the trilogy, as the story seems to go in an entirely different direction. However, I still enjoyed exploring this interesting concept for a dystopian society.