filipa_maia's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
2.0
The story is not bad: a world where love is a disease and there is a medical procedure to cure it. People who fall in love are sick. Easy as that. Now, there is a bunch of plot holes to this narrative - if the medical procedure cures you from love, we are talking about ALL THE LOVE romantic and non-romantic. Right? Am i missing something here? Maybe there is something here that I'm not getting. And then this book is unnecessarily big. It could be way shorter, and way more interesting, if we didn't spend so much time reading, with immense detail, every single thought she has. That's why I had to put it down the first time - I was so bored.
Of course that me, being me, I need to read the second book because this one ends in a cliffhanger. I just need to know.
Graphic: Abandonment, Gaslighting, Torture, Grief, Gun violence, and Violence
Moderate: Death, Death of parent, Bullying, Murder, and Torture
Minor: Animal death and Police brutality
kamrynkoble's review
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.25
Graphic: Police brutality and Forced institutionalization
Moderate: Death of parent, Suicide, Violence, and Gun violence
Minor: Animal death
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: Medical content, Death of parent, Death, and Child abuse
Moderate: Ableism, Gun violence, Police brutality, and Suicide
Minor: Homophobia and Lesbophobia
zoeharvey__'s review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
4.25
Graphic: Forced institutionalization, Violence, and Police brutality
Moderate: Suicide and Animal death
crybabybea'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
4.0
Graphic: Violence, Forced institutionalization, Police brutality, Animal death, Death, Suicide, and Death of parent
mindins's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
4.5
Graphic: Police brutality, Violence, and Forced institutionalization
Moderate: Suicidal thoughts and Animal death
Minor: Death of parent
rawrsoobin's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? No
3.25
Graphic: Injury/Injury detail, Police brutality, Animal death, Gun violence, and Violence
Minor: Death of parent
lucys_library's review against another edition
4.5
Moderate: Gun violence, Injury/Injury detail, Blood, Medical trauma, War, Forced institutionalization, Police brutality, and Grief
mino88'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? No
4.0
Moderate: Forced institutionalization, Police brutality, Death of parent, Gaslighting, Mental illness, and Emotional abuse
disabledmermaid's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
4.0
The world this is set in is genuinely unsettling and tense. The concept is disturbing, and reading Lena’s journey as she slowly shakes herself free of the brainwashing was intense
The love story was convincingly written as a teenager falling in love for the first time, hard and quick and often reckless, with the added touch of fear and doubt due to the society Lena was raised in
I also loved how much Lena’s love for her best friend, her mother, and her cousin’s daughter contributed to her choices
Graphic: Forced institutionalization, Police brutality, and Violence
Moderate: Suicide