Delirium (Lauren Oliver novel)
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| Author | Lauren Oliver |
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| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
| Series | Delirium trilogy |
| Genre |
Young adult Science fiction Romance Dystopian |
| Publisher | HarperCollins |
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Publication date
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January 1, 2011 |
| Media type | Print (hardback) |
| Pages | 383 |
| Followed by | Pandemonium |
Delirium is a dystopian young adult novel written by Lauren Oliver, published on January 1, 2011 by HarperCollins (HarperTeen), about a young girl, Lena Haloway, who falls in love in a society where love is seen as a disease. The novel is the first part of a trilogy, followed by Pandemonium.
The story is set in Portland, Maine, in the year 2091. Civilization is concentrated in those cities which escaped the severe bombings of decades past.Travel between cities is highly restricted. Electric fences separate the city from the Wilds—unregulated territory which was presumably mostly destroyed by bombs.
The totalitarian government teaches that love is a disease, named amor deliria nervosa, commonly referred to as "the deliria". A surgical cure for the deliria has been developed and is mandatory for citizens 18 years old and over. Lena has looked forward to the procedure for years, convinced as she is by the government that love is a horrible disease that must be destroyed from mankind's system.
However, mere months before her scheduled procedure, Lena falls in love with an Invalid (a person who has not taken the Cure and lives in the Wilds) named Alex. He was born in the Wilds outside the city, and has pretended to be cured in order to live undetected in the city and be in the resistance. He offers Lena the means of escape from the procedure that will destroy her ability to love. While trying to gain Lena's love, he finds out about her past life and family. When she mentions her "dead" mother and how she always kept a specific necklace with her, he knew who she was. Alex then came and wanted to show Lena that her mother was still alive. So he brings her to the Crypts (place where people who have not obeyed the rules stay) to show her that her mother was still alive. When they go and get to the room where her Mother is, they find it empty, with a life size hole in the wall where the letter 'O' was in the word LOVE.
Ever since then, Lena has thought that her whole childhood was a lie and wanted to leave. The two of them would leave the city and live in the Wilds, joining the rebels who oppose the procedure and the government. Although Lena struggles with the thought of leaving her life behind, she ultimately decides to go just seven days before her procedure.
Lauren Oliver says that the inspiration for Delirium came to her one day at the gym. She had recently read a Gabriel Garcia Márquez essay where he said that all books were about either love or death. Since her first book, Before I Fall was about death, she wanted to write a book about love. At the gym she was watching a news report about a pandemic, and the two ideas combined in her head to form the central concept of the Delirium books.
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