Review: "Delirium" by Lauren Oliver

Last weekend I wanted to read something light and fun and essentially YA. I had that YA craving - do you know what I mean? So I went scouting on the shelves in our new study/library to see what I could dig out and ended up with Lauren Oliver's "Delirium". I kind of had regretted buying it and had occasionally thought that I would never get around to reading it but I decided to give it a try - my deal with myself was that if I was not captured by page 20, I would just forget about it and give it to charity. 

Surprise, surprise, by page 20 I had no idea about which page I was on as I was so engrossed in the plot! This is fine YA! It is a dystopian book in theme with books such as Hunger Games and just like many of these books, the protagonist is a teenage girl with an independent spirit. 

Lena Holoway is an orphan who lives with her aunt and uncle and spends her time either at school, running or with her best friend. the beautiful, stunning Hana. In this dystopian version of Portland, Maine, cities have become little islands in a desert of forgotten countryside. It is a world dictated by a disease, deliria also known as love. Scientist have found the cure for love and when you turn 18 you get the cure and are set on your life path. Based on interviews and data, society will dictate who you marry, what job you will do, how much money you will make and so on. All there is left for the individual to do is to navigate life within these strict and non-negotiable boundaries. 

Lena comes from a family of deliria sufferers and she looks forward to the day where she will be cured and free to start living without the fear of falling ill. But then something happens... or actually someone happens. She meets Alex who has not been cured and he awakes feelings in her that she never knew existed. 

Right, so as you can probably guess this is not the most surprising of novels. Actually, a lot of the plot is down-right predictable. The only part that really surprised me was the ending which was absolutely fantastic. It was a bit of a cliff-hanger but I might not read the sequel (or I might, we'll see) and it worked for me anyway because it had a real statement to it. 

The lack of surprise in the plot is counter-acted by the detail with which this dystopian world has been created; it is a believable and engaging. It really caught my attention and imagination and it kept me reading even when I knew what would happen next and that is the strength of the book. 

The plot is standard, as it were, the characters were ranging in quality with some being better and more believable than others but the dystopian setting is superb - if nothing else, read it for that. 

Read it if: You want a lighter, more YA appropriate version of the world from Margaret Atwood's "The Handmaiden's Tale". You are working your way through the best parts of YA dystopia. 

Top Ten Tuesday: Reading Outside the Comfort Zone

Tuesday = Top Ten. If you don't know what I mean go to The Broke and The Bookish who created this amazing meme. This week's theme is Ten Books That I Read That Were Outside Of My Comfort Zone - doesn't matter if you liked them or not.



10) "Twilight" by Stephenie Meyer
Vampires? As if I'd ever read a book about vampires... well, that all changed post-Twilight.



9) "Londonstani" by Gautam Malkani
English is not my first language and slang and ghetto/East End/London speak was way out of my comfort zone when I read this one. It took me a bit to figure out how to read but it was absolutely worth it!

8) The Harry Hole series by Jo Nesbo
Crime fiction is not something that I read a lot of. Actually I more or less never read it unless somebody really recommends a specific book. However, I borrowed some of the Harry Hole books on audio to listen to on the way to work and got hooked on anti-here main character, the classic renegade, alcoholic policeman with a talent for hunting serial killers.



7) "Until The Final Hour" by Traudl Junge
Real life stories is not something that I really read a lot. Just don't find it that interesting but this one is different. It is the story of Traul Junge, the young women who was a secretary to Hitler and who was in the bunker with him until the final hour. A little piece of history.



6)"Just a Girl" and "They Sent a Woman" by Lise NoergaardNot sure that ehse have been translated into English but these were the first biographies I read and I must have been 13 or 14 years old. They are amazing, all about being a girl in a time when boys were worth much more and a girl was... well, just a girl.



5)"The Ice House" by Minette WaltersThis was one of the first adult books I read and definitely the first crime fiction. I found it during vacation time when going through my parents shelves, desperate for something to read. The cover was very artsy with lots of bright colours and I was very taken with it.



4) "The Handmaid's Tale" by Margaret Atwood
I thought I didn't like dystopian - actually was quite sure that I hated it - until I read this one. Now one of my fave books ever.



3)"Pride and Prejudice" by Jane AustenThis one figures on almost all my lists! And I do love it so it makes sense... When I read P&P it was the first time I read a real English classic. Totally out of my comfort zone (preferred chick lit) but Colin Firth in a wet shirt had tempted me too much - I had to read it. I am so happy that I did!

2) "Anne of Green Gables" by L. M. Montgomery
When I just starting reading, for years most of what I read was books about horses. There were a few classic contemporarty childrens books as well but mostly I loved the ones with horses. Then the older sister of a friend recommended "Anne of Green Gables" and from then on a whole new world opened to me.



1) "Collected Poems" John Betjeman
I don't actually read a lot of poetry but I go back to the collected poems of John Betjeman again and again and again. Bought the books out of curiosity as it was really cheap and I just fell in love with the words and the style. I even have some of his poems recorded on my ipod. Amazing, amazing artist.

Top Ten Tuesday: You Make Me Feel

This week's Top Ten Tuesday is one that will have us all remembering those books that just made us feel a little bit more. It is: Top Ten Books I Had VERY Strong Emotions About. If you haven't already, remember to head over to The Broke and The Bookish ´http://brokeandbookish.blogspot.com/ - who are behind this amazing Tuesday tradition. They are one of the best blogs out there if you ask me.

10) "The Crimson Petal and The White" by Michel Faber
This is one amazing story. It is about a prostitute in 19th century London who falls in love and to some extent loses both her identity and her freedom. It is very touching and it made me incredibly APPRECIATIVE that I a women today, not 150 years ago...

9) "The Secret Dreamworld of a Shopaholic" by Sophie Kinsella
This is not a book that I like. Actually I was so ANNOYED by the frustrating lack of self-awareness and common sense of the character that the story ended up being irrelevant and all the fun parts of the book were lost on me because I was so ANGRY with the airhead heroine.

8) "The Book, The Film, The T-shirt" by Matt Beaumont
Told from many many angles with several characters, all of them with their own voice. One of the FUNNIEST books on my shelves, it never fails to make me LAUGH.



7) "Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix" by J. K. Rowling
Probably the Harry Potter book that touched me most deeply. The dictatorship of Umbridge and the absence of light was almost too much for me. It was so tough to read through, I almost couldn't deal with the pain that Harry went through and it almost HURT physically to read through it.



6) The Sooke Stackhouse series by Charlaine Harris
This series never fail to make me feel COMFORTABLE. I love Sookie and her southern charm and she never makes to make me feel all WARM inside.



5) "The Little House on the Prairie" by Laura Ingalls Wilder
I was quite young when I first read this one and the other in the series and it was a book that stayed with me for a very very long time. One of those that I kept coming back to, reading over and over again and marveling at the strength of the characters. The family values displayed in it really really MOVED me.

4) "We Need To Talk About Kevin" by Lionel Shriver
Scary, so scary. If you are pregnant and even just a little bit worried about whether or not you will be a good mum, it is not the right time to read this one. Or maybe it is. The ultimate fictional story about nature vs. nurture, questioning whether or not a person can be born evil. Really made me WORRIED about becoming a mother.

3) "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows" by J. K. Rowling
Read the last pages of this book on a train and cried. I could not stop myself. It was so sad, the end of an era and I was so not ready to say goodbye to Harry. Luckily this is one of those books that can be read and re-read because because it was both SAD and HAPPY at the same time.



2) "Wir Kinder vom Bahnhof Zoo" by Christiane F.
I was thirteen when I first read this one - the truthful and heartbreaking account of a teenage drug addict and prostitute in 1980's Berlin. It was the book that really made me realize that what I saw on the news actually happened to girls who were just like myself. Such an eyeopener and very very emotional read, it made me really SAD.



1) "The Handmaid's Tale" by Margaret Atwood
Most be the scariest book I have read in the sense that it all seems so real. This could happen. Reading this book actually scared me, not in the thriller-sense, but in the what-is-the-world-coming-to-sense and I actually ended up writing an article about it for a political blog as well as buying it as birthday presents for friends. Amazing book that really had me SCARED.

Cool cover for Margaret Atwood

The other day, I had a browse in my local bookstore and found out that the Margaret Atwood novels have been given new and really funky, cool covers. To those of you who haven't seen them, here are some of them.

"Lady Oracle" - no oracle for me

I randomly picked out a Margaret Atwood novel - "Alias Grace" - in my local bookstore at Christmas time and since them I have been reading an Atwood novel every now and then. So one day the time came to read "Lady Oracle" which I was really excited about for two reasons:
1) The title. I think it sounds so cool
2) A large chunk of the novel takes place in Italy and London, two of my favourite places.

The plot of the novel is quite inventive - as always with Margaret Atwood's novels. Joan Forster, the key figure, is an anti-heroine. She used to be a chubby child, a fat teenager who was left by her mother to cope with an emotionally retaded father and morphed into an elegant woman with no self esteem. Every time Joan is met with a difficult situation, she mimics her mother and runs off.
The running off seems to be what decides the directions that her life goes into, even which man she marries. In the end - this is where the story begins - she stages her own death and runs off to Italy.
Now the plot is good, I like the stories of her childhood and how she comes to write romance novel. It is a good story but Joan herself is annoying. She is frustratingly unable to take a decision and do something with her life and it ruins the book for me. I simply cannot like her and therefore cannot empathise with her story and it means that I disconnected from it. Have you had this experience with this book or another novel?

It's a cover up!

Don't judge a book by its cover and all that... I know but how often are you attracted to a book just because something about the cover is really pretty/ugly/different/cool? I know that I often pick up a book just because I'm drawn in by the cover. So here are a few of my favourite covers:

Marisha Pessl: "Special Topics in Calamity Physics"

Margaret Atwood: "The Blind Assassin"

Evelyn Waugh: "Black Mischief"

Chuck Palahniuk: "Snuff"

F. Scott Fitzgerald: "Tales of the Jazz Age"

Which covers are your favourites?