Delirium by Lauren Oliver was a book that I think I saw mentioned on Parajunkee. I thought it sounded interesting, so I snagged a copy.
Basically, this book falls into that ever-popular subcategory of Young Adult literature, the dystopian novel. I think everyone can agree that the bellwether of YA dystopian lit is Lois Lowry's The Giver. Pretty much everybody had to read that book in school, and I honestly think that it is the one piece of required reading that EVERYBODY loves. I honestly think I have yet to meet a person who didn't like this book. Because let's face it, it's a friggen masterpiece, so it's deserving of every accolade.
And naturally, not everything can be that good, so I usually use Scott Westerfeld's Uglies series as a basis of comparison when I'm dealing with dystopian YA.
So. Delirium is the story of 17-year-old Lena, who lives in the United States of the future, where cities are walled in from “The Wilds” and everyone, on or around their 18th birthday, undergoes a procedure in which they are cured of a disease called amor deliria nervosa, a disease more commonly known as “love.” People don't fall in love in this world. They are “cured” of all desire, and then they are matched with a mate and are expected to reproduce.
For the most part, the US in Delirium is identical to the one in which we live today. In fact, the only thing different about it is this procedure curing people of love. Other than that, there's not any futuristic technology in the book. There's a roundabout reference to the idea that the US has depleted its supply of oil, but other than that, it's the world we live in today.
So, as you can imagine, Lena, our heroine, is eagerly awaiting the day she'll be cured. After all, the government told her that the deliria is a disease, one she doesn't want to catch. But of course, a few months before her procedure, she falls in love with a boy named Alex.
I'll start off by saying that Delirium reminded me of Uglies SO much. Like, the two books were almost plaigiaristically similar, in my opinion. You know, girl in the have-nots is waiting for a procedure so her life will be better has a friend (who is part of the “haves”) is flirting with the fringes of society. Said friend leads main girl to this “other” world, and then main girl slowly changes her mind about the society in which she lives. This is kind of standard stuff for YA dystopian lit, so I go with it. In this case, the “other” world is called the Wilds, and the people who live in it the Invalids. As you may have guessed, Alex is an Invalid.
I guess Delirium is different in the fact that it's not so much a dystopian novel with a love story in it, it's a love story with a dystopian twist.
Where Uglies succeeds and Delirium fails is in the sense of scope. By the end of Uglies, both you and Tally (the main character) understand how sinister this society is and why it needs to be stopped. You understand why Tally decides to go back to the city to become Pretty, even though it means sacrificing the boy she loves and potentially losing herself.
No such luck with Delirium. By the end of the book, I didn't really feel like Lena understood that there was a “greater good” out there. Everything she was doing was for her and Alex. It was all about them. I get that this is a love story, but if there's going to be this dystopian element, you have to, well, acknowledge the resistance. Get the main character involved in it. Otherwise, it becomes just another dumb love story with no real purpose. So instead of Delirium telling the story of one girl's triumph over a corrupt government, it's a story of a selfish girl turning her back on a world that just doesn't understand her.
Holy crap, Lena's emo.
Ahem. ANYWAYS, you get what I'm saying. That the story is constructed as Lena's World vs. Their World, not Lena vs. the World. In the end, Lena choose her world, with love in it. Which is all fine and dandy, but if that's the case, if Lena has no sense of duty to spread love to the rest of the world, then it's going to be a hard sell as to why I should read the rest of the series.
If that's the case, then there's no urgency. I get that the government is bad, and that they're perpetrated lies about love, but if you're reading YA dystopia lit, you're familiar with the genre. I was waiting for something bigger and badder here. Like in Uglies, when you find out that the government isn't just making people Pretty, they're making them mindless drones. And then it just get worse. But in Delirium, I didn't get why the government was such a Big Bad. I mean, ostensibly, I know why: love isn't really a disease, they're suppressing people's ability to feel, blah, blah, blah. I get that. But I was waiting for a greater truth to be revealed, something more than the fact that the Regulators brutally beat people (we've all read 1984. I think by its very definition, dystopian lit requires an overly-zealous and harsh government). Lena's major revelation is that “The government has been LYING to us!! About everything!” WELL NO SHIT, SHERLOCK. This is textbook dystopian lit here; realizing that the government has been lying isn't exactly a major revelation.
Not to mention that by the end of the book, I about wanted to fucking punch Lena in the face. Ahem. Okay, I get the fact that love is THE major theme of this book, but good God, Lena is CONSUMED by her love for Alex. I mean, given the way she's acting, I can almost see why the government would want to ban love. Like, she's borderline Bella-in-New-Moon bad.
HOLY CRAP. The government was banning Twilight-type love (because, apparently, in this book, that's what love is). Well, in that case, I totally agree with their decision.
I mentioned that I was reading Delirium in my Collection Development class, and the girl I was sitting next to, a YA Specialist, said that everyone she had talked to about the book gave it a solid “meh.” I'm inclined to agree with that assessment. However, I am still interested in where this series is going. Since the book ends with Lena heading out into the Wilds (a plot twist for which I was glad; if it ended up that she had the procedure, I totally would have called copy on Uglies), Oliver really has no choice but to broaden the scope of the story.
One can only hope.
Books Read: 10/100
Currently Reading: The Crimson Thread by Suzanne Weyn
No comments:
Post a Comment