Book Review: Delirium by Lauren Oliver

Delirium by Lauren Oliver
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I finished this book three days ago -- I'm still crying over it and I am just now getting up the courage to face all the many emotions this book brought about.
I'm a little bit obsessed with this book right now. Think Hunger Games, only, half the action and twice the romance, and just as good.

I didn't believe this book for the first 40 pages. Didn't believe it would suck me in, didn't believe I would fall for it, get caught up in it, stay up late reading just one more chapter, ache for the characters, cry their tears, share their joy --- I didn't think I would love it.

But boy do I love this book. This book is nothing but love. Love love love.
For anyone who has ever felt the word love has "lost it's meaning" or that it is simply too inadequate, this book proves that, just like any other symbol in a system of language, it is the person who gives the meaning to the word. Since finishing this book, I have been so sappy. I tell my husband I love him about 50 times a day, and I just follow him around from room to room when he gets home from work. I have truly been infected -----
I think that the author did a fantastic job of making her characters believable. Lena did not fall in love over night, she did not change her mind about everything she had been told all her life over night, she was a realistic teenager, friend, orphan, and lover --especially for a girl who had never even felt the taste of the WORD love, let alone all that it entails inside one's very being and core and heart and soul.
This book did so many things for me. Cry, laugh, rejoice....but most of all, it made me grateful. So infinitely grateful. For language, for words, for emotions, for choice, for freedom....and of course, for love. It's more than romantic love, too. It's family love, it's self-love, it's for the love of humans in general and the very love that makes this entire universe possible ---

SPOILER ALERT:
I am a religious person. And for me, I cannot deny this allusion to Christ: "His hair is a crown of leaves, of thorns, of flames. His eyes are blazing with light...." and then, he sacrifices himself for love.

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