After finishing the entire trilogy [Delirium, Pandemonium, and Requiem] PLUS the novella collection [Delirium Stories: Hana, Annabel, & Raven], I suddenly realized that I have never reviewed a single one of these stories. I didn’t even have any of them started/saved in my drafts. What?!? I don’t know where my brain has been, but this is a problem I need to fix!
Imagine a world in which people were promised a “cure” that could take away all heartache. Peace and happiness for all as long as everyone has a simple procedure? If it sounds too good to be true, that’s probably because it is. Lena has been raised to believe that love is a disease [Amor Deliria Nervosa] and that life without love is the safest and most stable way to live. People don’t fall in love and get married anymore — they get paired based on government-imposed ratings and compatibility of interests. It’s safer and easier to just fall in line, but Lena has a hard time forgetting the mother who could not be cured and whose last words to her, before committing suicide, were “I love you.” Only a few months before her own procedure, Lena has a chance encounter with a young man named Alex. Despite government assurances that all “invalids” [non-cured people living outside of society] have been taken care of, she’s pretty sure Alex *is* an invalid. And when she starts experiencing symptoms of the Deliria, she also starts to question everything she’s ever taken for granted. Is love really a disorder? Does the government really have everyone’s best interests at heart? And, most importantly, should Lena go ahead with her own procedure or follow her heart?
Happy Reading!
Librarina 
Sounds a whole lot like the “Matched” trilogy, by Allie Condie.
When I was writing this review, I was going to comment how similar the stories were and then link to a review for Matched… but then I saw that I hadn’t reviewed that either! Looks like the summer reading madness led me to drop the ball on a bunch of reviews. Better late than never, I guess. 😉
Just finished reading this series, gosh I loved it 🙂 Are the novella good? I have been trying to get my hands on them in book form rather than epubs but I can’t find them anywhere! 😦
Hi Gemma! The only thing I didn’t like about the novellas is that I read them *after* the Requiem when they were released *before* that book. Hana’s story was fleshed out a bit more in Reqiuem, and I was able to figure out a lot of what was mentioned in her novella. (I don’t think it would have felt so redundant if I read the novella first.) The book is definitely out there — I know several libraries in my system have it, and it’s available on Amazon and B&N — so keep looking!
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