Delirium

Bibliographic Information: Oliver, L. (2011). Delirium. New York: Harper.

Plot Summary: A young girl, Lena, lives in a futuristic society where love is considered a sickness that needs to be cured at the age of eighteen.  Up until their eighteenth birthday they are separated continually from the opposite sex, and any romantic relationship is illegal and considered to be an infection.   Once they are of age, they are evaluated and paired with someone, assigned jobs, number of children, and their future together is perfectly planned.  Lena has always looked forward to getting “the cure”, especially since her parents were both infected, looked down upon in society, and dead because of it.  She is almost 1eighteen and will be safe soon, but when she meets Alex, a nineteen-year old boy who has already been “cured” and considered safe to be around, she starts to question not just the cure, but also the laws and world around her.

Critical Evaluation: Lauren Oliver, author, does an amazing job describing the dramatic effects of love, but with a negative twist.  She uses realistic emotions, actions, and feelings associated with love to create a very adverse take on it.  It seems very logical with her descriptions that love can be very detrimental to society, making this story seem like a possibility of the future.  Throughout the book, Lena, is forced to choose between her feelings of love and what she has been taught her whole life.  The detail in which Oliver describes Lena’s feelings are powerful and inspiring and connects with the reader’s own emotions with great intensity.  By the end of the book you want to yell at Lena to follow her heart and tell her love is real and good.   The overlying theme of the greatness and necessity of love in our lives is what empowers the story.  

Reader’s Annotation: What if you lived in a word where love was considered a disease?

A world without love is a world without problems, right?

Information about the author: As the daughters of two literary professors, Lauren Oliver and her sister were encouraged to live imaginative lives.  Her writing served as an extension of her love of reading, and she wrote several sequels to books she loved, something that is now considered fan fiction (Oliver, n.d.).  

    She studied literature and philosophy at the University of Chicago, and the received an MFA in creative writing.  She worked at Razorbill, a young adult branch of Penguin Books, where she began writing Before I Fall.  In 2009 she left her job to pursue writing full time.  Her other works include the Delirium series, and three novellas from the Delirium world (Wikipedia, 2013).

 

Genre: Dystopian, Science Fiction, Romance

Curriculum Ties: English (literature)

Booktalking ideas (one or two):

1. Lena’s parents’ perspective (they were “infected” with love)

2. Description of life when a person turns 18 (their life is decided for them)

Reading level/Interest age: 14+

Challenge Issues:

To defend challenged material I would:

1.    Read/watch/listen to the material to become familiar with the content.

2.    Familiarize myself with the Arizona Common Core curriculum standards http://www.azed.gov/azcommoncore/teacher/ to defend how the material can support the learning of these standards.

3.    Refer to the Library Bill of Rights: http://www.ala.org/advocacy/intfreedom/librarybill

4.    Refer to the collection policy of my library.

5.    Collect reviews from staff/students/patrons who have used the material

Why I chose this book: This novel's premise of love as a disease is interesting.  Almost every person has felt love before, so they are more likely to react to the concept that characters need to be cured of it.  

References:
Oliver, L. (n.d.). Author. Retrieved from http://www.laurenoliverbooks.com/author.php

Wikipedia. (2013, May 11). Lauren Oliver. Retrieved from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lauren_Oliver