Delirium by Lauren Oliver

The premise of Delirium intrigued me from the beginning.  The idea of love and other emotions as part of a mental illness or human weakness had been well played out in classic dystopian literature and film, but I was interested in Oliver's take on the subject. It proved to be worth my time.

Lena is our startlingly content heroine/narrator.  Due to emotional turmoil and tragedy of her past, she is eager to have the "cure" on her eighteenth birthday to stabilize her place in society and provide freedom from her complex emotions and the dreaded disease "amor deliria nervosa."  Then she meets Alex, a boy with hair the color of autumn leaves and a different way of looking at life.

Oliver's lyrical prose kept me going through the first part of this story. Her use of figurative language was beautiful, but  it did take a while for the story to pick up speed. The world itself is not unrecognizable from our own which I think is a conscious choice by the author to relate to today's teens. Lena's change in point of view takes a believable amount of time and the story holds several lovable characters, including her silent young cousin, Grace.  I will definitely be ready for the next two books in the trilogy.