By Jordan Sunkel
Round Table editor

Love is a disease. It causes difficulty focusing, euphoria, despair, fixation, paranoia, dizziness, difficulty breathing, even death. It is the deadliest of all diseases. It is amor deliria nervosa.

This is the world Lena lives in. When she turns 18 in a few months, Lena will undergo the surgery that will remove the part of her brain where the deliria is located. As far as Lena was concerned, it was a good solution, and she did not rebel against it.

That is, until she learned about the Invalids, the Wilds and the people living there. Her best friend Hana has slowly started to pull away from the accepted idea, sneaking out after curfew to go to parties and listening to music that has been banned for years.

The first time Hana sneaks out, Lena follows her. While at the party, Lena meets Alex, and her world is forever changed. The more time she spends with Alex, the more rebellious she becomes, and the more she catches amor deliria nervosa.

Delirium by Lauren Oliver tells the story of Lena and her struggle to do what she feels is right. She has seen what the surgery does, to her family, her friends and the people she cares for.

The story line is absolutely incredible. The topic is innovative, new and a little bit terrifying. Imagining a world without love, where love is even an illegal world, is a place that doesn’t look appealing.

As Lena learns to love, she learns to let go of her past. “The past is nothing but a weight. It will build up inside of you like a stone. Take it from me: If you hear the past speaking to you, feeling it tugging at your back and running its fingers up your spine, the best thing to do – the only thing to do – is run.”

My only problem with the novel is that it seems like it is exactly like the Uglies series by Scott Westerfield. There is a “solution” to a “problem” in society, and the main character has to decide whether to stay or go into the “Wilds.”

The way Oliver tackles such an extreme topic is better than Westerfield. She writes the story like it’s truly realistic and a possibility for the future. The characters are not struggling with “beauty” issues, they’re struggling with love and how it affects the world.

The more Lena learns about true life, the more she tries to teach the reader. “I know that life isn’t life if you just float through it. I know that the whole point – the only point – is to find the things that matter, and hold onto them, and fight for them, and refuse to let them go.”