Delirium

Lauren Oliver

Publisher: Harper Collins

Publish Date: already out

Version: hardcover special edition

Series: Delerium

Mama, Mama, help me get home
I'm out in the woods, I am out on my own.
I found me a werewolf, a nasty old mutt
It showed me its teeth and went straight for my gut.

Mama, Mama, help me get home
I'm out in the woods, I am out on my own.
I was stopped by a vampire, a rotting old wreck
It showed me its teeth and went straight for my neck.

Mama, Mama, put me to bed
I won't make it home, I'm already half-dead.
I met an Invalid, and fell for his art
He showed me his smile, and went straight for my heart.

-From "A Child's Walk Home," Nursery Rhymes and Folk Tale

This is the story of Magdalena “Lena” Holoway (Tiddle).  She lives in Portland, ME with her aunt Carol, uncle William and cousins Jenny and Grace Tiddle.  She has a history that has been haunting her life and she cannot wait to get the Procedure in order to shed herself of that.  She is an orphan, her father was killed and her mother committed suicide after the procedure didn’t work for her instead of getting it another time.  In the beginning of the story, Lena is counting down the days until she is cured, which means that you won’t get amor deliria nervosa.  This is a disease that is described as “the deadliest of all deadly things: It kills you both when you have it and when you don’t.”  Lena is a senior and thus has to take her evaluation, which will decide who she is paired up with (and will marry) after she is cured.  Everyone hopes for a good evaluation.  This means that you will be paired up with better people.  Who you are paired up with will determine how the rest of your life will be.

Something strange happens and Lena’s evaluation and this causes her to have to take them again.  In the meantime, she graduates from high school, and spends the summer with her best friend, Hana Tate.  Hana had her evaluation on the same day that Lena did.  While running, they meet Alex Sheathes, who is a guard, and Lena is intrigued by him.  All throughout school, they segregated girls from boys to keep them from contracting “the disease,” so Lena knows little of the opposite sex.   Alex and Lena spend more time together and she learns about things that they didn’t teach her in high school or in The Book of Shhh.

I found this book to be interesting and humorous at the same time.  I loved how Oliver incorporated things that happened in history and changed them to fit the ideal that the government was trying to uphold.  This ideal was that you died from falling in love and needed the cure to prevent that.  It was interesting to read passages from The Book of Shhh and the other books that were changed in the chapter headings.  I am eagerly awaiting the sequel, Pandemonium, to see what happens to the characters in this book.

Step on a crack, you'll break your mama's back.

Step on a stone, you'll end up all alone.

Step on a stick, you're bound to get the Sick.

Watch where you tread, you'll bring out all the dead.

- A common children's playground chant, usually accompanied by jumping rope or clapping

 

 

Ninety-five days, and then I’ll be safe.

I wonder whether the procedure will hurt.

I want to get it over with.

It’s hard to be patient.

It’s hard not to be afraid while I’m still uncured, though so far the deliria hasn’t touched me yet.

Still, I worry.

They say that in the old days, love drove people to madness.

The deadliest of all deadly things: It kills you both when you have it and when you don’t.

Most things, even the greatest movements on earth, have their beginnings in something small. An earthquake that shatters a city with a tremor, a tremble, a breath. Music begins with a vibration. The flood that rushed into Portland twenty years ago after nearly two months of straight rain, that hurtled up beyond the labs and damaged more than a thousand houses, swept up tire and trash bags and old, smelly shoes and floated them through the streets like prizes, that left a thin film of green mold behind, a stench of rotting and decay that didn't go away for months, began with a trickle of water, no wider than a finger, lapping up onto the docks. And God created the whole universe from an atom no bigger than a thought. Grace's life fell apart because of a single word: sympathizer. My world exploded because of a different word: suicide. Correction: That was the first time my world exploded. The second time my world exploded, it was also because of a word. A word that worked its way out of my throat and danced onto and out of my lips before I could think about it, or stop it. The question was: Will you meet me tomorrow? And the word was: Yes.

 

▪Lena and her discovery of knowledge.  Everything she knows to be true and has been taught all her life has changed and the journey that she embarks on when she realizes this is very interesting to read.

▪Hana.  She is a good friend to Lena and understands Lena, even when she does things that are illegal during that time.

▪Alex.  Gotta love Alex.  He educates Lena on how things really are in Portland.  Teaches her about Invalids (people who live in The Wilds who were supposedly destroyed over 50 years ago during the blitz) and sympathizers.  He is very loyal to Lena and understands her hesitation about things.

▪Grace.  This is Lena’s cousin who hasn’t spoken a word.  She also had a stigma placed on her as her father was a sympathizer who disappeared before his trial and her mother was going to be tried in his place.  Her mother died of a heart attack before that could happen, leaving Grace and her sister Jenny as orphans.  The nice thing about Grace is that even though she didn’t speak, she had other ways of communicating with Lena and understood her better than anyone else in the household.  Her part that she played in this book was amazing and I was always looking for the subtle communication that Grace would impart.

▪Carol Tiddle, Lena’s aunt.  Although she was wrapped up in appearances and tried to do everything by the book, she had willingly took in Lena, her sister Rachel, Grace and Jenny after they were orphaned.  Well, I’m not sure how willingly she did it or was it required of her as their next of kin.   Nonetheless, she took them in and tried to make the best of it.  There are parts in this book, where I don’t like her very much, but she is acting like a mother-figure and thinks that she has Lena’s best interest at heart.

Humans, unregulated, are cruel and capricious; violet and selfish; miserable and quarrelsome.
It is only after their instincts and basic emotions have been controlled that they can be happy, generous, and good.

- The Book of Shhh

 

▪Regulators.  They go through enforcing the laws.  Not that I have anything against law enforcement officers, but in this book, they went to extremes.

▪The laws themselves.  Ridiculous.  That is all I can say about them.

▪The people who think it is okay to talk about someone and treat them badly because of a situation that is beyond their control and doesn’t even involve them.

Symptoms of Amor Deliria Nervosa

PHASE ONE:
-preoccupation; difficulty focusing
-dry mouth
-perspiration, sweaty palms
-fits of dizziness and disorientation
-reduced mental awareness; racing thoughts; impaired reasoning skills

PHASE TWO:
-periods of euphoria; hysterical laughter and heightened energy
-periods of despair; lethargy
-changes in appetite; rapid weight loss or weight gain
-fixation; loss of other interests
-compromised reasoning skills; distortion of reality
-disruption of sleep patterns; insomnia or constant fatigue
-obsessive thoughts and actions
-paranoia; insecurity

PHASE THREE (CRITICAL):
-difficulty breathing
-pain in the chest, throat or stomach
-complete breakdown of rational faculties; erratic behavior; violent thoughts and fantasies; hallucinations and delusions

PHASE FOUR (FATAL):
-emotional or physical paralysis (partial or total)
-death

If you fear that you or someone you know may have contracted deliria, please call the emergency line toll-free at 1-800-PREVENT to discuss immediate intake and treatment.

Expected publication date: 06 March 2012

From Lauren Oliver's website:

I’m pushing aside the memory of my nightmare,
pushing aside thoughts of Alex,
pushing aside thoughts of Hana and my old school,
push,
push,
push,
like Raven taught me to do.
The old life is dead.
But the old Lena is dead too.
I buried her.
I left her beyond a fence,
behind a wall of smoke and flame.