Audiobook Review – Delirium (Delirium, Book 1) by Lauren Oliver, Narrated by Sarah Drew (2/5 stars)

Reading Level: Young Adult
Genre: Dystopia
Length: 11 hours and 47 minutes (480 pages)
Publisher: HarperAudio
Release Date: January 24, 2011
ASIN: B004LQ6M7Y
Stand Alone or Series: 1st book in the Delirium series
Source: Audiobook from Audible.com
Rating: 2/5 stars

“In an alternate United States, love has been declared a dangerous disease, and the government forces everyone who reaches eighteen to have a procedure called the Cure. Living with her aunt, uncle, and cousins in Portland, Maine, Lena Haloway is very much looking forward to being cured and living a safe, predictable life. She watched love destroy her mother and isn’t about to make the same mistake.

But with ninety-five days left until her treatment, Lena meets enigmatic Alex, a boy from the Wilds who lives under the government’s radar. What will happen if they do the unthinkable and fall in love?”

This is another book I’ve had on my TBR pile for awhile. I originally didn’t read it right away because I was burnt out on YA dystopian books. I haven’t read a lot of dystopian lately and thought I would give it a shot. This ended up being a very predictable and typical YA dystopian novel. I really wasn’t all that impressed; it was okay but not great.

I listened to this on audiobook and the audiobook was okay. The narrator made the male voices sound a bit unrealistic and goofy. Additional she gives our heroine, Lena, a voice that is very breathless and urgent sounding throughout. At first it does help to make situations seem more urgent, but as the story progresses it just makes the heroine sound like she’s overreacting to everything. In short I wouldn’t recommend listening to this on audiobook.

This book is typical YA dystopian from the beginning to the end. Basically after a huge disaster (which we only know is called the Blitz) cities decide that humans have to undergo labadamies at the age of eighteen in order to make them not love or react with strong emotions. It’s a stretch as a premise I know.

Of course our heroine is a good little girl and is excited to get her “cure” until she meets a boy and falls in love with him (yawn). Now she doesn’t want to be cured but wants to escape with him…of course she has to get caught right before she’s going to escape and (of course) they move her procedure up. Okay I guess you could call that last sentence spoilers…but really you knew from page 1 what was going to happen here if you have ever read any YA dystopian books.

The story is slow, the heroine is cookie-cutter boring. The writing is okay; I felt like there was a lot of time spent with character dramatically over-analyzing their feelings..but whatever. I was just never emotionally involved with these characters so there’s that.

The book “ties up” basically in the middle of an action scene of sorts; which is to say it ends up on a giant cliffhanger with no resolutions (except if you’ve read other YA dystopian you can guess what will happen in book 2…I went and read a recap of book 2 just to see if I was right…I was).

Overall an incredibly typical young adult dystopian novels. It is decently written so if you want an overly dramatic and predictable dystopian read with a lot of teenage angst over love and feelings; this should fit the bill. I personally thought it was predictable, boring and generally inane. I wasn’t a fan and won’t continue reading the series.

This book goes towards the following reading challenges:
– Mount TBR Reading Challenge
– You Read How Many Books? Reading Challenge
– Flights of Fantasy Reading Challenge
– Audiobook Reading Challenge