Delirium

Lauren Oliver
Book 1 of Delirium trilogy

In the world created by Oliver, Love (Deliria) is a disease. And like all diseases, it can be cured. Lena, our hero, is a teenager in Portland Maine. She and her friend Hana are enjoying the last summer before their senior year of high school, and the last summer before they receive the cure. At the age of 18, every American citizen has the surgical procedure that cures Deliria. After that, mating matches are made and life goes on without the trouble caused by excess emotion. Of course, for this to be a story, Lena and Hana begin to have questions about this system. What they discover and how they and those around them react will change their lives forever. I find the pattern of dystopian future plotlines interesting. Much like an alternate history (e.g. What would life be like if the south won the Civil War) where a particular key event turns out differently, each of the dystopian future novels chooses a particular societal ill and vanquishes it. So here, Love is what causes all of our problems and we imagine a future where love is controlled. In The Hunger Games, Hope is what is taken and in Matched, Love remains, but the choice to Love is removed. In Divergent, several problems are highlighted at once (truth, courage, power, etc.). By imagining what life would be like with a missing element, we are able to show the true value of that element. With that in mind, what would a dystopian future novel look like where the missing element was Violence? Could you write such a novel, or would it cross into Utopian?

Rating: Read