What if love were a disease...

Love, the deadliest of all deadly things: It kills you both when you have it and when you don't.

Delrium by Lauren Oliver is a novel set in a dystopian world where the whole of society sees love as a disease one has to be cured of. It is also undeniably a love story. The author repeatedly hints at Shakespeare’s’ Romeo and Juliet and draws parallels to the most famous, yet tragic love story of them all. Oliver creates a world where love has been cursed as a disease. Lena, the protagonist has grown up in this world, and is just a few months away from having her operation to ‘cure’ her from this disease.

Every citizen in America must legally undergo a procedure to ‘cure’ them of the ability to love anyone, even their families. Lena is counting down the weeks and days until she is cured, and will not have to worry anymore, unlike her best friend Hannah, who is completely blaze about the whole concept. Lena is the perfect candidate, and has been practising her answers that she must seamlessly repeat to the judges for months. She is the straight A student, girl next door type, at least, until she catches someone’s eye.

However, Lena has reason to be worried. Her mother was one of the ‘unfortunate’ people who could not be cured, and thus resulted in disgracing the family and tainting their family name. Lena has the ability to love in her blood, which she cannot suppress anymore. Her mother could not face the loss of her husband who she really loved after he died. Lena is taken in her by aunt, and strives to live as closely as possible to the rules and regulations. She tries to do this more so than anyone else her age to rise above the pitying looks people give her.

All love is stripped from this world. After the ‘cure’, couples are then matched by the government, according to interests and compatible rankings. The society is robbed of all empathy and passion, and instead replaced with convenience and ‘relationships’ that are more like business than anything else.

The whole concept of love being a hideous disease is drummed into everyone from a young age, at school, by parents and family and by the government. There is also an official book,  The Book of Shhh, which quotes from are used as epitaphs at the start of each chapter, emphasising the strictness of this society and the official style of them creates the idea that this movement actually happened in a time in history. It also helps the reader believe that this dystopian society could exist. As with other dystopian literature, it can sometimes be unimaginable or unrealistic, but Oliver manages to avoid this concept.

Oliver’s love story is heightened by her beautiful fluid writing. She writes almost poetically which enables the reader to really vividly imagine her scenes and understand the feelings the characters are going through and experience, most of which are almost impossible for us to imagine.

Overall, this book is probably more of a teenage futuristic romance; however the concept is intriguing and rather stimulating. Let’s just hope the world never ends up like this. After all, it is love that makes the world go round.