Delirium by Lauren Oliver

Title: Delirium
Author: Lauren Oliver
Publisher: Harper Teen
Series: Delirium #1
Pages: 440
Description from Goodreads: 
Before scientists found the cure, people thought love was a good thing. They didn’t understand that once love - the deliria - blooms in your blood, there is no escaping its hold. Things are different now. Scientists are able to eradicate love, and the governments demands that all citizens receive the cure upon turning eighteen. Lena Holoway has always looked forward to the day when she’ll be cured. A life without love is a life without pain: safe, measured, predictable, and happy.

But with ninety-five days left until her treatment, Lena does the unthinkable: She falls in love.
*******

I've gotten slightly behind the times. I wanted to post this yesterday when it came out, but then I was still sick on Monday so yesterday's post ended up being the one I wanted to write Monday about a few minor changes... BUT ANYWAY.

This book. Oh my goodness. Once I started, I couldn't stop reading. I loved it. I really, really did.

In a lot of ways, Delirium is what you'd expect from a dystopian novel. I feel like if Matched and Birthmarked had a child, it would almost-not-quite be this. But I don't mean that in a bad way -- there are certain things that all dystopians have, just as trademarks of the genre, and for what it's worth, I thought Delirium did it very well. Despite the fact that it reminded me of both of those other novels, it is definitely a story all its own.

Lena is seventeen. In ninety-five days, when she turns eighteen, she will get the cure -- the cure for the amor deliria nervosa. Love, the disease that kills you when you have it and when you don't. But then she meets Alex, and everything changes. She's been infected, badly infected, but she's happy that way.

I loved the characters. Lena, Alex, Hana... I want to be their friend. I loved the little things that made them human. Yes, Lena is scared of rebelling. Her fear makes her real, and her courage makes her a heroine worth reading about. I love the development of the relationship between Lena and Alex. I love the friendship dynamic between Lena and Hana. I loved the history, too. The clips from The Book of Shhh at every chapter, the story of how society came to be the way it is, and the personal history, too -- the story of Lena's family. So much awesome packed into 440 pages.

The story kept me turning pages to see what would happen next. And by the end, I knew what was going to happen -- I had figured it out, but I had to keep turning pages because I had to know for sure if I was right. Obviously I'm not going to tell you what that ending was, because that would be terribly spoilery of me, but I will say that I was right. But the fact that I could figure out the end, that it wasn't entirely unpredictable, didn't lessen the story at all. In fact, I think maybe the [insert non-spoilery word here, because all the ones I can think of are spoilery] of the ending just made me love it even more.

I'm going to stop talking now, because I feel like I'm going to say something spoilery by accident if I don't. So I will leave you with three things: 1. Delirium made me go read some poetry. (I love when books give me good poetry to look up.) 2. I want Pandemonium nowww.... And 3. Go read this book right now. Please and thank you. :)

Review: Unearthly

Title: Unearthly
Author: Cynthia Hand
Publisher: Harper Teen
Pages: 448
Series: Unearthly #1
Rating: 5/5
Description from Goodreads:

In the beginning, there's a boy standing in the trees . . . .

Clara Gardner has recently learned that she's part angel. Having angel blood run through her veins not only makes her smarter, stronger, and faster than humans (a word, she realizes, that no longer applies to her), but it means she has a purpose, something she was put on this earth to do. Figuring out what that is, though, isn't easy.

Her visions of a raging forest fire and an alluring stranger lead her to a new school in a new town. When she meets Christian, who turns out to be the boy of her dreams (literally), everything seems to fall into place—and out of place at the same time. Because there's another guy, Tucker, who appeals to Clara's less angelic side.

As Clara tries to find her way in a world she no longer understands, she encounters unseen dangers and choices she never thought she'd have to make—between honesty and deceit, love and duty, good and evil. When the fire from her vision finally ignites, will Clara be ready to face her destiny?

---------------

I don't even know where to start. School and travel made it hard for me to really get started with this one, but once I started, I barely put it down (exceptions: participation-required school events, such as a physics quiz. Stupid school). It was fantastic. Unearthly sucked me in and wouldn't let me go.

The summary seems a little off to me; at the beginning of the novel, Clara already knows she's part angel. In fact, she is receiving her Purpose - the big mission that is basically the point of her life. Her family (Clara, her mom, and her brother Jeffrey) moves to Wyoming so that she can find the boy who she believes she must save from a forest fire, but she doesn't have a clue about the particulars. Christian is everything she imagined the boy of her dreams to be, and then there's Tucker - her best friend's brother, who picks on her incessantly from the moment she arrives and who just might really like her. And while Clara is figuring out her Purpose in life, she's also learning more than she thought there was to know about her angel heritage...

Cynthia Hand has created a world that is absolutely riveting. I love, love, love her idea of angel-bloods and their Purposes, and just everything about the supernatural world she has created. And the characters are really fantastic - not just Clara and Christian and Tucker, but also Wendy and Angela and Jeffrey and Clara's mom (and, and, and...). Any one of them could easily be real; they're multifaceted and flawed, and the relationships between the characters seemed genuine too. Not to mention the story itself, which was simply captivating -- I needed to keep reading, to find out what would happen next, what else the characters would face.

I'm trying hard not to just go into a gushing rant about Unearthly but apparently that isn't working so well. At any rate, I loved this book, and I absolutely recommend it. Go forth and read!

Links:
Cynthia Hand's website
Cynthia Hand's blog

Review: So Much Closer

Title: So Much Closer
Author: Susane Colasanti
Publisher: Viking (Penguin)
Pages: 256
Rating: 3.5
From the book jacket: 
In the city that never sleeps, Brooke wakes up to a whole new life.

Scott Abrams is the love of Brooke's life. he just doesn't know it yet. So when his family moves to New York City the summer before senior year, Brooke has no choice but to follow Scott. It's her last chance to prove to him that they're meant to be together.

But the city is full of surprises for Brooke. Ever since a painful family trauma, she's been closed off to her family, to her friends, and even to herself. Now, inspired by the thrilling energy of the bustling and creative city around her, Brooke starts to explore her talents and become someone she never dreamed she'd be.

[Highlight for what I think is a spoiler -->]So what will she do when her dream of love finally comes true...and instead, she wants something more?<--

---------------

I have very mixed feelings about this book. The writing and the characters were wonderful. Brooke's thoughts and the issues she was dealing with felt very real. Colasanti's writing is splendid. It felt like a real teenager was telling the story the same way she'd tell a story to her best friend - which was excellent, and very well-done, although I will admit that some of the same slang ("like" and the substitution of "goes" for "says") got on my nerves the same way it does in real life.

I loved the characters. It was my love for John and Sadie that really kept me reading to the end of the book, but Brooke was excellent too - she was a genuinely real character, and she challenged herself and the readers to think about what it means to figure out who you are. John was easily my favorite; I wish I could meet a boy like him in real life. Sadie was also fun. I want a Sadie friend. Scott, I did not like. I don't know what it was, he just got on my nerves. He felt flat and boring, and I never understood why Brooke liked him so much. His main character trait seemed to be that he liked The Office. Still, I could put him aside to read more about John and Sadie (and, okay, Brooke too).

But to me, the plot fell flat. I loved the characters and the writing -- I really did -- but the entire premise of the book seemed contrived and ridiculous. At seventeen, she finds out this boy that she's loved from afar for years is moving away, and he just happens to be moving to NYC, where she just happens to have always wanted to go, and where her dad just happens to live? And then she gives up a life with great best friends to move closer to a boy that she doesn't even really know? I mean, I get that teenagers occasionally do dramatic things for what they think is love, but that just seems to be pushing it. And I thought the end was incredibly predictable (although it was executed in such a way that it was also really, really sweet and adorable).

Middle of the road on this one. Characters: A-plus. Writing: A-plus. Plot: D. Maybe a C-minus at best. If you're willing to overlook the strangeness of the premise, though, So Much Closer is still a sweet, fun read. Despite its shortcomings, I enjoyed it.

Links:
Susane Colasanti's website

Review: Matched

Title: Matched
Author: Ally Condie
Publisher: Dutton Books
Pages: 384
Series: Matched #1
Rating: 5 stars
From the book jacket: 
Society matched them, but love set them free.

In the Society, Officials decide. Who you love. Where you work. When you die.

Cassia has always trusted their choices. It's barely any price to pay for a long life, the perfect job, the ideal mate. So when her best friend appears on the Matching screen, Cassia knows with complete certainty that he is the one...until she sees another face flash for an instant before the screen fades to black. Now Cassia is faced with impossible choices: between Xander and Ky, between the only life she's known and a path no one else has ever dared follow - between perfection and passion.

---------------

I don't even know where to start. Matched was such an utterly amazing book that I really have no idea where to begin. So I suppose I'll begin by saying that I absolutely adore this cover. It is so gorgeous. Also, it shimmers. Love love love.

And the story! It's set up within a typical dystopian frame - "perfect" society, someone rebels. (I'm totally not trashing this frame, by the way - it's just part of the genre.) But it feels like it has so much more to it than that! The Society is so intricate, so well-developed. It just kind of makes you shiver with how these are all realistic people acting so...machine, but still with their human characteristics. I'll stop now before I go off into my whole spiel about how much I love dystopian fiction, but suffice it to say that the Society in Matched is one of the best.

The background is perfect: just add characters. Honestly, I feel like the characters could have been boring as all get-out and the book would still have been semi-readable because the backdrop is so good, but Ally Condie did so much better. Cassia is one of the most real protagonists I've encountered, especially with this kind of set-up. And Xander and Ky....oh, man. I love Xander and all, but Ky is so....ahh. I would not want to have to choose. Poor Cassia.

Okay, I recognize that I'm rambling. I shall attempt to stop that. Basically, Cassia gets Matched to Xander, so the two of them will be married...but then, for just a moment, Cassia sees Ky's face on her Matching screen. Cue forbidden love and all sorts of intrigue.

The plot sounds kind of basic, but the execution...I could read pages and pages of absolute nothing, as long as it was written as beautifully as this book. I love love love Ally Condie's writing. And when paired with an awesome dystopian society (er, Society) and some amaaazing characters...well, you're in for a novel you don't want to miss. My only complaint was that I wanted to see more development of the minor characters, but really, I felt like even they were well-rounded.

Long story short, I love this book. Definitely, definitely read it.


Matched is in stores November 30, 2010 (that's tomorrow, for those of you reading this on the day I'm posting it). I recommend finding a copy.

me with Ally Condie at ALAN

Links: 
Ally Condie's website/blog

Review: Beautiful Darkness

Title: Beautiful Darkness
Author: Kami Garcia & Margaret Stohl
Publisher: Little, Brown
Pages: 503
Series: Caster Chronicles #2
Rating: 5 stars
From the book jacket: 
A few months ago, I believed nothing would ever change in this town. Now I knew better, and I only wished it was true.

Ethan Wate used to think of Gatlin, the small Southern town he had always called home, as a place where nothing ever changed. Then he met mysterious newcomer Lena Duchannes, who revealed a secret world that had been hidden in plain sight all along. A Gatlin that harbored ancient secrets beneath its moss-covered oaks and cracked sidewalks. A Gatlin where a curse has marked Lena's family of powerful Supernaturals for generations. A Gatlin where impossible, magical, life-altering events happen.

Sometimes life-ending.

Together Ethan and Lena can face anything Gatlin throws at them, but after suffering a tragic loss, Lena starts to pull away, keeping secrets that test their relationship. And now that Ethan's eyes have been opened to the darker side of Gatlin, there's no going back. Haunted by strange visions only he can see, Ethan is pulled deeper into his town's tangled history and finds himself caught up in the dangerous network of underground passageways endlessly crisscrossing the South, where nothing is as it seems.

**********

I loved Beautiful Creatures, the first book in the Caster Chronicles, so I've been dying to read this since way before it was released. Sometimes in cases like that, the sequel can't possibly live up to your expectations, but I think Beautiful Darkness did.

I will confess that I had a hard time getting into it at first - it started off a little slowly. But once it got going, it really got going. After getting through about fifty pages throughout the week in my few free minutes at school, I sat down this morning to read a bit more over breakfast. I decided that I would read while I ate, then go work on college essays and NaNoWriMo. Around 3 pm, with only a brief interruption to get lunch, I finished the novel and hadn't written a word. I simply could not put it down.

Ethan is still crazy in love with Lena, but Lena is struggling with a dark secret and even darker emotions that are pulling her away from Ethan. Suddenly, she's hanging out with her evil cousin Ridley and a mysterious new Incubus, leaving Ethan feeling pushed aside and desperate to save her before she turns Dark. Her Seventeenth Moon is coming up, and Lena will have to be Claimed soon. And Liv, Marian's new assistant at the library, is only convincing Lena that Ethan has moved on. But, of course, in Gatlin, SC, nothing is what it appears to be.

I loved so many things about this book. The characters - Link and Liv especially, and Ethan's great-great-aunts, and Ridley, and of course Ethan most of all - just came to life in my mind. I wish we had gotten to see more of Lena, although I'm confident that she'll be more important in book three. I would read pages and pages of just small talk between these characters, because I love them that much.

And the plot. Oh my goodness. I really want book three NOW, because I just have to know what happens next. Beautiful Darkness keeps working at solving the mysteries introduced in book one, answering a few questions and raising plenty more, and there's always something new happening. I feel like that description is really cheesy and doesn't do the book justice at all, but I'm not sure (1) how much I can say without accidentally spoiling something and (2) how else to say it. It just takes hold of you and refuses to let go until you've read every last word, and then leaves you hungry for more of it.

Long story short: I adored this book, every bit as much as the first one if not more, and I can't wait for book three! Absolutely read the Caster Chronicles.

Links: 
Caster Chronicles website
Kami Garcia's blog
Margaret Stohl's blog

Review: If I Stay

Title: If I Stay
Author: Gayle Forman
Publisher: Dutton Books
Pages: 196
Rating: 4.5 stars
From the jacket flap:

"Just listen," Adam says with a voice that sounds like shrapnel. I open my eyes wide now. I sit up as much as I can. And I listen.

 "Stay," he says.


Choices. Seventeen-year-old Mia is faced with some tough ones: Stay true to her first love - music - even if it means losing her boyfriend and leaving her family and friends behind?


Then one February morning Mia goes for a drive with her family, and in an instant, everything changes. Suddenly, all the choices are gone, except one. And it's the only one that matters.


If I Stay is a heartachingly beautiful book about the power of love, the true meaning of family, and the choices we all make.


First off, I have to say how much I love this cover of this book. I love the texture of the font that makes it look so handwritten, I love the simplicity, I just love it. That said, the paperback cover is beautiful too, but I think I like this one better.

And the story is just beautiful. The narrative is nonlinear; a series of flashbacks is intercut with the story in the present, and it's not broken into chapters but rather divided by time stamps. Not everyone can pull off such a complex structure, but Forman certainly does. And the characters are so beautifully, wonderfully real. The choices Mia is forced to make are very real ones, and her reactions to them are so starkly human and so well-tied to her personality that she could very easily come to life. And even the smaller characters - Adam, Kim, Mia's family, Henry, Willow, everyone - are well-developed. Readers see them through the filter of Mia's narration, but we are shown (not told: important distinction) enough that we really get a sense of who these people are and what Mia's life is like.

Mia's relationships to her family and her boyfriend were refreshing, too. Her love life isn't perfect; far from the I-have-the-perfect-boyfriend or I-have-the-perfect-secret-lover relationships shown in a lot of books, Mia's relationship with Adam has the same ups and downs that any normal relationship has. They are in love, but their relationship is flawed. They fight and argue, but it's something they can work through. And it's wonderful to see a teen who doesn't totally hate her parents. Mia experiences the same feelings of loneliness and misunderstanding that most teens experience, but she still loves her parents, they are very present in her life, and she has a very protective and sisterly instinct toward her younger brother.

My only complaint was that it seemed to take a very long time to get to the heart of the major choice Mia was facing, but the story is absolutely worth reading in spite of that. It's beautifully written, heartbreaking and hopeful at the same time. I have to confess to crying like a baby at parts of it. Definitely read this book if you get the chance.

Links:
Gayle Forman's website
If I Stay book website