Delirium: A Book Review

There are NO SPOILERS in this book review. Enjoy! (:

Book review #2 of 2013!

Those of you who continue to read my book reviews know that I always begin with lengthy intros that often deal with how I discovered/decided to read said book more than about the actual content. Though I understand that that may be boring for some of you, I actually find it rather fascinating how people come across the material they read- whether it's through word of mouth, or because you saw the movie trailer and you want to read the book before seeing the film, or if it's through browsing a bookstore completely at random. Those little tidbits fascinate a book lover like me, so I will continue to share them. If they bore you, I won't even notice if you skip it and go straight to the review.

With that said, Delirium is a book I discovered through simply reading many books of the same genre. When you've read Matched (Ally Condie), the Uglies Series (Scott Westerfeld) and similar YA dystopian novels, you get accustomed to seeing them surrounded by familiar books. So though I never really got a personal recommendation for this book, I suppose I heard it through book association. If you read my 2013 Reading List then you probably saw it listed there. I came into reading this book with relatively no expectations whatsoever. I had no glowing (or any actually) recommendations from anyone, but also no one discouraging it either. So, without further ado, let's start on some actual content!

Title: Delirium
Series: Book #1 in Delirium series
Author: Lauren Oliver
Genre: YA/teen dystopian fiction
Pages: 480
Release date: February 1, 2011
Links: Amazon  | B&N | Goodreads










As usual, let's start with the back-cover description:

"They say that the cure for love will make me happy and safe forever. And I've always believed them. Until now.

Now everything has changed. Now I'd rather be infected with love for the tiniest sliver of a second than live a hundred years smothered by a lie."

2013 Reading List

I read 50 books in 2012, a goal set in early March of that year. Knowing that many New Year Resolutions don't make it past January/February, that makes me feel very accomplished. In my New Year Resolutions, I set the new goal of reading 60 books in 2013.

Sometimes I feel as if reading goals such as this are necessary for someone like me who feels like their reading list is never ending. It's overwhelming to think you may possibly never get to all the books you want to. Hopefully, by the end of 2013, 60 will get me through a lot of them.

Though I have listed only 22 books, many of these books were either series (The Maze Runner Series, Lauren Oliver's series) or general suggestions to read more works by a particular author (Austen, Murakami) so the reading list actually totals ~33. Though this is only about half of my reading goal for 2013 of 60, I am a very spontaneous reader (meaning I want to immediately read whatever I'm in the mood for regardless of how long books have been on any list- hence my love for browsing bookstores AND why it seems like I can never get to certain books) and loading up this list with books I really don't care for just for the sake of reaching 60 is senseless. There's a very good chance that ~25% of these books won't even get read by the end of 2013, but are instead replaced with books that I find completely at random.

That leads me to my next topic. I'm considering doing an updated reading list every quarter of the year to update on my progress through this list as well as new additions. So expect an updated reading list/progress by the end of March!

So, without further ado, here is my introductory reading list!

Matched: A Book Review

There will be NO SPOILERS in this review. Enjoy! (:

I finished Veronica Roth's Insurgent a week ago and heard that Matched was another decent book in the realm of teen dystopian novels and decided to pick it up.

(photographed: Ally Condie's Matched)

"Cassia has always trusted the Society to make the right choices for her: what to read, what to watch, what to believe. So when Xander's face appears on-screen at her Matching ceremony, Cassia knows he is her ideal mate . . . until she sees Ky Markham's face flash for an instant before the screen fades to black. The Society tells her it's a glitch, a rare malfunction, and that she should focus on the happy life she's destined to lead with Xander. But Cassia can't stop thinking about Ky, and as they slowly fall in love, Cassia begins to doubt the Society's infallibility and is faced with an impossible choice: between Xander and Ky, between the only life she's known and a path that no one else has dared to follow."