Delirium

     I recently finished reading Delirium by Lauren Oliver. The book is about a girl named Lena who lives in a society that has recognized love as a disease. 'It has been sixty-four years since the president and the consortium identified love as a disease, and forty-three since the scientists have perfected a cure.' page 1 first sentence. Along with love being a disease there are resisters, or as they call them Invalids, who refuse to believe what the society believes. They live on the outskirts, blocked out by an electrified fence to protect the society from the disease. What the society doesn't know is that some of the Invalids lead normal lives inside the society's walls communicating and transporting food to the wilds, including a boy named Alex who changes Lena's mind about the society.

     In the beginning of the story, Lena believes the society and is excited about getting her procedure, counting down the days till she will be cured. 'Many people are scared of the procedure. Some People even resist. But I'm not afraid. I can't wait. I would have done it tomorrow, if I could, but you have to be at least eighteen' page 1 paragraph 2. When I read this my impression of Lena was a clone of the society, like she never did anything bad or never got in trouble, just stayed perfectly in line. It also seemed in this part that the society was very opaque, only giving out a little information and everyone blindly agreeing with it, and thats why I think Lena found it so easy to believe, just following the rules and not stopping to think why there is a rule in the first place.

     Towards the end of the book Lena no longer believed in the society after she meets Alex. Alex explains to her all the different lies the society has been telling its people about love, the Invalids, the border line, and even about her mother who she thought killed herself driven mad with deliria. 'I've never gotten within five feet of the fence. We've been warned not to, had it drilled into us. They told us we would fry; told us it would make our hearts go haywire, kill us instantly. Now I reach out and lace my hand through the chain link, run my fingers over it. Dead and cold and harmless, the same kind of fence the city uses for playgrounds and schoolyards. In that second it really hits me how deep and complex the lies are' page 279. When I read this part of the story I could really feel a change in Lena because this is really the very beginning of when she sort of starts to become a rebel and really starts to understand the lies of the society. It also seems like the opaqueness of the society is gone now and Lena could see right through the society instead of the blindness and only being given a little bit of information. 

     I really think that part of the theme in this book is that the person you love could help you change your mind about something because it was really after Lena met Alex that she started to rebel against the society and see all the lies that were drilled into her brain.