BY CORINNE
I want to talk about a book trilogy that I recently finished, but I don’t really want to talk about the last two books, and only the first one… Why? Because I am a conflicted reader… I got so bored with the last two books that I honestly skimmed the last one completely (I know grab the pitchforks and torches). But honestly, I couldn’t bring myself to like the last two because I just couldn’t emulate the same love for Delirium again, that book, in my opinion was a masterpiece. So I want to talk about Delirium, the first book of the trilogy then go into why I wasn’t a huge fan of the other two…
So my main love, Delirium, what a book! I picked it up casually from my local bookshop, and thought, what the hell? So I took it home and read it in like 4 hours, I could not put it down! Here are my 5 favourite parts of Delirium:
1. The concept of the story is really clever! I mean you have these stories of dystopian societies like The Hunger Games and Divergent, and you think, “Great! Another recycled story…” But Delirium isn’t like that at all. It’s a dystopian society, yes in a way. But these people live in a seemingly ordinary world to ours, only the governing system chemically eradicates the emotion of love, as they believe it to be ‘Delirium’ – a disease. And as sick and twisted as it may be to change someone’s entire life and rule their world, stripping them of free thinking, and personal inhibitions, you can also kind of see where they would be coming from. There’s an odd sense of peace in it. So it makes sense to you and you don’t have to read four chapters on the explanation of the society built.
2. Lena wants the procedure and is completely opposite to stereotypical heroins. I mean she isn’t a rebel from the beginning, someone who believes in love or freedom. Lauren Oliver sets this up perfectly, I mean it sounds odd to us but she has never read poetry, never uttered the word love and has never listened to music, felt love or experienced any other life, other than the one surrounding her, telling her that love is a disease, a Delirium. That to me, is so cool, because when Alex comes in to the mix, she is SO resistant of him for so long, and it’s refreshing to see a character change so much. The book was basically Lena slowly falling in love with Alex which is just the best because other books I read (and love regardless) have a magical “fall in love” period of about four days, and although you go along with it, it’s still not realistic enough. But Lena struggles with it, she has two conflicting decisions constantly plaguing her.
3. Alex is a hot damn, sexy, dream boat! It really is a solid point for me, I mean what YA novel doesn’t include a sexy, sensitive dream machine that, if he was to ever exist in real life, would never go for me in a million years? It’s the appeal of booklovers, our fantasy men are way better than the ones that would ever come into our REAL life… (Just being honest!)
4. Their love was subtle in an obvious kind of way… This may not make sense but like I said, it took a lot of work on Alex’s end to convince her of her feelings for him, I mean he stalked her a little bit, always ‘bumped’ into her, and even rescued her from a dog bite at a party… And all that time, Alex knew what he felt, Lena was slowly figuring it out… And when their love blossomed and Lena knew, SHE KNEW. It was really beautiful because she just, one day knew. Her world had opened up and she then realised that her life was not what she thought it was…
****SPOILER****
5. Alex’s Death… It seems strange that I’m listing this as one of my favourite parts, and it wasn’t for the majority. It was so freaking sad, and emotional, and when she looked back and saw him with his shirt stained red and just lying there… GAH! My heart split in two, LITERALLY. But, it was very beautiful, the way he promised he was right behind her, and their poetic, Romeo and Juliet love that was going on, and then the tragedy of him dying for Lena would have been horrible. But you didn’t expect it and you kind of appreciated it… It wasn’t predictable YA, and it was like, now Lena’s survival was so imperative, she now had to survive for Alex as well…
Now I am not hating on the other two books, Pandemonium was actually really good, for the most part, and the way the last one ended was fine too, but the one thing that I cringed the most at in Requiem was, you guessed it! The stupid love triangle. I was so proud of Delirium for having the heroin lose, but still keep running, she lost her first love, the one that introduced her, for the first time ever, to what love meant – it had a certain girl power to it, like she can keep on fighting without a guy to save her… But then she gets kidnapped with Julian for like a week, and then she’s over Alex and wanting Julian, but the feeling guilty for wanting Julian, then Julian is sentenced to death so she saves him then makes the decision to pursue Julian in the end then Alex comes back… WHAT THE?! Really! This is where Requiem lost me… I was excited about the rebellion that was going, and you saw that, but what happened to the strong Wilds Lena, that was strong and fierce even though her heart was still breaking? It had only been six months since she lost Alex and she spends one week in a cell with a preppy, pansycake (yes I am a Divergent fan also) and she’s over Alex and falling for another. I DON’T BUY IT. So that’s my main peeve with the series, other than that, it was a decent story, but nothing will come close to Delirium for me in this series…
onlywhitekids 