TBR Jar Review: Delirium by Laurn Oliver
This was my latest pick from my TBR Jar and I looked forward to reading it as I really enjoyed reading "Before I Fall" by the same author.
This book is about Lena who lives in the United States a number of years in the future. In this future people undergo a "cure" when they turn 18, ensuring that they won't contract the "disease" that is love. This cure is essentially a lobotomy that leaves people docile and dispassionate, "protected" from the throes of not just love but any strong feeling. It's not really clear to me why the government thought that this "cure" was necessary in the first place, but apparently they deemed it important.
Lena is looking forward to being cured as her mother was smitten and killed herself when Lena was younger, and now Lena is afraid of ending up like her. Of course, in the last summer before her cure, she meets a boy. But not just any boy. Thi particular boy turns out to be exactly what she's always been afraid of, but when she overcomes her fear, she uncovers a number of secrets and lies that have shaped her life so far.
This book is the first in a trilogy but I very much doubt I will be counting with it, as I found it mostly boring. The first half, at least, of the book moves so slowly, I found myself questioning why this was not a standalone. I can't speak for the other two books, but this one could have been edited to fit into less pages and thereby making the story a standalone or perhaps a duology. It felt very much like the story was being dragged out to fit a certain number of pages. I get that a futuristic world takes some world building, but this just seemed to cycle around in the same old stuff.
I also had a problem with the characters. Lena is timid and obedient, a stickler for rules, obviously marked by her past life. Things happen that make her question things and start to change, but then all of a sudden she changes dramatically, deciding to go out on a raid night to save her friend from being caught out after curfew. I found that bit unrealistic. If she was really THAT timid would she go off on a night like that, not even knowing for sure if her friend was actually out? As for Alex I questioned why he even had to live in Portland. We don't really know if he is actually working for the resistance or what, but it doesn't really seem like it, except for at the very beginning.
Some of the plot points were also a little convenient. Like how is it possible to just roll up at the prison and be let in on basically a whim with no control of credentials or anything, in what is supposedly a tightly controlled society. And the escape...is that really possible? To dig a hole with a pendant straight through the wall into freedom, apparently? Were there no perimeter walls around this supposedly safest ward in the prison? And the people in the Wilds live apparently a short walk from the border without being harassed by the guards? I find the whole setup a little hard to believe to be honest.
The dragging plot, the lacklustre characters and the conveniency of it all makes me give this 2 stars out of 5. I won't be contining the series.
The next pick from my TBR Jar is "Two Boys Kissing" by David Levithan. I've heard good things about Levithan's writing so I'm looking forward to this one. It's apparently about two boys taking part in a kissing marathon to set a record, prompting other boys to confront their own sexuality as they watch the marathon unfold.
This book is about Lena who lives in the United States a number of years in the future. In this future people undergo a "cure" when they turn 18, ensuring that they won't contract the "disease" that is love. This cure is essentially a lobotomy that leaves people docile and dispassionate, "protected" from the throes of not just love but any strong feeling. It's not really clear to me why the government thought that this "cure" was necessary in the first place, but apparently they deemed it important.
Lena is looking forward to being cured as her mother was smitten and killed herself when Lena was younger, and now Lena is afraid of ending up like her. Of course, in the last summer before her cure, she meets a boy. But not just any boy. Thi particular boy turns out to be exactly what she's always been afraid of, but when she overcomes her fear, she uncovers a number of secrets and lies that have shaped her life so far.
This book is the first in a trilogy but I very much doubt I will be counting with it, as I found it mostly boring. The first half, at least, of the book moves so slowly, I found myself questioning why this was not a standalone. I can't speak for the other two books, but this one could have been edited to fit into less pages and thereby making the story a standalone or perhaps a duology. It felt very much like the story was being dragged out to fit a certain number of pages. I get that a futuristic world takes some world building, but this just seemed to cycle around in the same old stuff.
I also had a problem with the characters. Lena is timid and obedient, a stickler for rules, obviously marked by her past life. Things happen that make her question things and start to change, but then all of a sudden she changes dramatically, deciding to go out on a raid night to save her friend from being caught out after curfew. I found that bit unrealistic. If she was really THAT timid would she go off on a night like that, not even knowing for sure if her friend was actually out? As for Alex I questioned why he even had to live in Portland. We don't really know if he is actually working for the resistance or what, but it doesn't really seem like it, except for at the very beginning.
Some of the plot points were also a little convenient. Like how is it possible to just roll up at the prison and be let in on basically a whim with no control of credentials or anything, in what is supposedly a tightly controlled society. And the escape...is that really possible? To dig a hole with a pendant straight through the wall into freedom, apparently? Were there no perimeter walls around this supposedly safest ward in the prison? And the people in the Wilds live apparently a short walk from the border without being harassed by the guards? I find the whole setup a little hard to believe to be honest.
The dragging plot, the lacklustre characters and the conveniency of it all makes me give this 2 stars out of 5. I won't be contining the series.
The next pick from my TBR Jar is "Two Boys Kissing" by David Levithan. I've heard good things about Levithan's writing so I'm looking forward to this one. It's apparently about two boys taking part in a kissing marathon to set a record, prompting other boys to confront their own sexuality as they watch the marathon unfold.
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