delirium - First 100 Pages

Hello readers! I am back with part two of my 3 part review for delirium by Lauren Oliver. It was incredibly tough to put the book down because it is rainy and dreary, and all I wanted to do was read all day.

Read the first part of the review here: Initial Impressions - Delirium 

Book: Delirium by Lauren Oliver - 2011
My copy of delirium is the special edition, which contains a Q+A from the author, and an excerpt from the sequel.

First 100 Pages: What can I say? I'm not entirely sure what I read. Not because it was bad, or anything else, because I read it too fast! Lauren Oliver has a wonderful grasp of writing in the first person, enough that I'm sure even a slow reader will have read the first 100 pages and never noticed they had read that far! I found myself so incredibly immersed that I looked down and realized I was on page 90, and that I needed to stop reading soon.

Delirium is a story about a girl named Lena, short for Magdalena, that takes place in the future in the city of Portland, Maine. Portland, Maine? Really? Awesome I've been there before, may times, it helped me visualize the landscape, the smell of the ocean, and even the color of how the sun sets. Lauren Oliver, writing as Lena in the first person, does a wonderful job describing the setting. She even ads in smells to help you visualize in, without it becoming a ridiculous monologue. Lena describes things as she sees them, not overly detailed, but just enough to make it believable as internal thoughts as well as giving the reader a good visualization on the story and what Lena sees.

The book is a fascinating view on what society would be like if love, the disease amor deliria nervosa, we not present. I giggled a lot when I read that they had declared it a disease, one that I think roughly means - a disorder of the delirium of love, you know, something like that. They claim it is like a plague that all of the human population can get, and if you don't get the procedure you can become infected. The society blamed mental disorders, war, murder, all kinds of things on the disease. In the story Lena talks about the book that their society is based The Book of Shhh or : The Safety, Health, and Happiness Handbook, which seems like some wonderful propaganda that blurs fiction, fact, and ideas into one book to make the population docile. Including having rules and reasons for the country to be walled in and defended, and each society walled in and defended.

Delirium starts with Lena counting down the days when she can have her procedure done and be disease free. We learn about her family, and that she lives with her aunt, and other family members, and eventually learn her mother had 3 procedures and was never 'cured'. Lena thinks herself plain, if not ugly, and compares herself to her beautiful friend Hana. She remarks though, that after the procedure she probably won't feel anything at all like that anymore. Well several pages in we see that Lena is getting ready for her evaluation, which is the most important day of her life. The girls and boys go in separately (they also go to school separately) and are evaluated to see what their future prospects are. For marriage, jobs, the amount of children they are assigned to have. Lena is standing in line with Hana waiting to go in and Hana pops out with the most interesting line in the first 100 pages, "You know you can't be happy unless you're unhappy sometimes, right?" Oh, is Hana in love, is she doubting the procedure? Well, Lena hasn't found out yet, and I'm really curious, but Lena also avoids bringing it up again, ever, although she thinks about it.

During the evaluation all hell breaks loose and cows run stampeding through the lab, the government says it was a delivery mix up, Hana decides it was done by the Invalids, the people of the wilds who refuse to bow down and get treatment. Lena sees a boy while the stampede is happening (I'm assuming this will be her love interest). Later on Lena and Hana run into the boy again, he names himself Alex, but pretends he has never seen Lena before. Of course if you are sneaking around in a government building, and are probably someone the government wants to get rid of, why not pretend to know nothing. Lena reflects upon Alex, having to take her evaluation over again, and having her graduation from high school in the rest of the first 100 pages.

The first 100 pages seems to sent the tone of the story up so far, of a girl questioning some aspects of her society. I am looking forward to reading more. Delirium is the first book in a series, so I'm hoping it has an ending that leaves me wanting more, but that actually ends. I hate super big cliffhangers!

Buy the book to read it with me!: