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maggieparedesauthor's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
5.0
Graphic: Animal cruelty, Animal death, Bullying, Confinement, Cursing, Death, Domestic abuse, Emotional abuse, Gore, Gun violence, Homophobia, Misogyny, Sexism, Suicidal thoughts, Suicide, Torture, Violence, Forced institutionalization, Blood, Police brutality, Medical content, Kidnapping, Grief, Medical trauma, Death of parent, Murder, Gaslighting, War, and Pandemic/Epidemic
lonelylooper's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
3.5
Graphic: Animal cruelty, Animal death, Body horror, Death, Emotional abuse, Gun violence, Homophobia, Violence, Xenophobia, Blood, Police brutality, Medical content, Grief, Medical trauma, Fire/Fire injury, and Injury/Injury detail
Moderate: Suicidal thoughts, Suicide attempt, and Death of parent
Minor: Mental illness, Suicide, and Torture
laurenevlyn's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.0
Graphic: Animal cruelty, Animal death, Violence, Forced institutionalization, and Injury/Injury detail
Moderate: Suicide, Medical content, Suicide attempt, Murder, and Pandemic/Epidemic
Minor: Homophobia
saucy_bookdragon's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
1.0
It ticks off so much of what made the genre bad in the early 2010s that it at times reads like a parody. The world building is paper thin, falling apart with just one half brain cell of thought; the protagonist is a complete nobody bland piece of bread; and the love interest is just as bland and the romance lacks any chemistry.
With all that said, I didn’t actually begin really disliking this until I was done with the book. The prose was just okay and readable enough that I read most of it in one sitting, not so much entertained, more so I just had to finish for the book club where we specifically read bad books (this was my choice) (pretty sure all those bad books broke us so for the next few months we’re choosing good books again). I’m sure this book is just alright if you put literally zero thinking into it. Which honestly, that’s the core problem of these YA dystopias. They had some absolutely wild unrealistic dystopian premises and then ended up being shallower than a kitty pool with some truly shitastic world building.
Delirium’s premise really is laughable. It set the book up for failure from the beginning. “Love is a disease” is a bullshit premise, even for a fantasy, let’s be real. But then the book puts itself even further into the ground as it goes about failing to define what love actually is. It could’ve pulled itself together by perhaps drawing parallels to how interracial marriage was once illegal and/or how same-gender marriage was once illegal (two laws that are under threat in the US thanks to the asshats running the supreme court) (funnily, there is a terrifying line in this book that mentions how queer people are criminalized in this world and get The Cure which supposedly makes them no longer queer. This terrifying concept is never mentioned again). But nope, we’re going to stumble about and forget that there are real life situations where love is illegal and rebuild from the ground up! Let’s create another dystopia about cishet white people being oppressed in weird sci-fi ways and forget that there are marginalized people that are oppressed today!
Overall, great book pick on my part, me and the entire club hated it! Would recommend it if you want to read some bullshit!
Graphic: Child abuse, Death, Medical content, and Death of parent
Moderate: Ableism, Gun violence, Suicide, and Police brutality
Minor: Homophobia and Lesbophobia
julinapril's review against another edition
- Strong character development? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
5.0
Minor: Homophobia