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.
~book cover flap,
Delirium by Lauren Oliver
Lena is eager to have her procedure, to feel safe and secure from
amor deliria nervosa -- love, in other words. She's been taught, from a young age, how lucky she is that she lives in a time where nobody needs to suffer needlessly from this disease. Now that the procedure exists, there are no wars, no unhappiness, just stability and stable emotions. Lena knows and believes this to be true, that things are better now than in the "old days" before the procedure was perfected. When she meets Alex, though, she begins to question what she's been told.
The ending of this book reminded me of
The Handmaid's Tale-- not in detail or plot, necessarily, but in the emotions it leaves behind -- an idea that everything is not perfect, that there is sadness and difficulty ahead, but that the path ahead is nonetheless brighter than the path the character is leaving behind. (Ooh, and I just read that it's the first in a trilogy!)
