Delirium (2011) (edit title/settings)

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Characters edit see section history

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• Lena Ella Haloway: Her full name is Magdalena. The protagonist and narrator of this story. Lena is being raised by her aunt Carol since her mother committed suicide when she was six. Her best friend is Hana and she has been counting down the days until she gets cured religiously, since all she wants is the security and happiness that the cure promises.
• Alex Sheathes: Another main character. A boy Lena first sees at her Evaluation. Later on she comes to find that he is cured and working as a guard for the lab complex. Super Cutie :)
• Hana: Hana is Lena's best friend, and is stunningly gorgeous. Her family is very wealthy and has many luxuries other people can't afford. She is also more rebellious than most people.
• Grace Tiddle: Gracie is Lena's eight-year-old, mute cousin. Lena feels very close to her.
• Carol Tiddle: Carol is Lena's aunt, with whom she lives. She is cured. She is obsessed with making the right impression and doing the dishes.
• Brian Scharff: Lena is matched with Brian Scharff after her evaluation. He has a plethora of allergies and asthma.
• Jenny Tiddle: Grace's older sister, who often teases and prods Grace. She likes to act like she is boss. Lena does not care for her very much.
• Rachel: Lena's older sister by 9 years. She is cured and paired.
• William Tiddle: Lena's uncle.
• Marcia: Lena's cousin.
• Jed: Works with Lena at her uncle's shop. He grunts, mostly.
• Thomas: Used to be a guard in the Crypts
• Angelica Marston: A classmate of Lena and Hana who the girls think is stuck-up.
• Mama: Lena's mother, who was full of love and committed suicide when Lena was very young. She had to go through the 'procedure' thrice.
• Allison Doveney: A girl in Lena's class.
• Andrew Marcus: Helps Lena's uncle at Stop-N-Save. He picks his nose. A lot.

Quotes edit see section history

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• “That's when you really lose people, you know. When the pain passes.”

  Alex

• “I love you. Remember. They cannot take it.”

  Lena's mom

• “You can't be really happy unless you're unhappy sometimes”

  Hana to Lena

• “Not gray, exactly. Right before the sun rises there's a moment when the whole sky goes this pale nothing color- not really gray but sort of, or sort of white,and I've always really liked it because it reminds me of waiting for something good to happen.”

  Lena

• “Sometimes I feel like if you just watch things, just sit still and let the world exist in front of you - sometimes I swear that just for a second time freezes and the world pauses in its tilt. Just for a second. And if you somehow found a way to live in that second, then you would live forever.”

  Lena pg. 153

• “Love: a single word, a wispy thing, a word no bigger or longer than an edge. That's what it is: and edge; a razor. It draws up through the center of your life, cutting everything in two. Before and after. The rest of the world falls away on either side.Love, the deadliest of all deadly things: It kills you both when you have it and when you don't.”

  Lena

• “That's the beauty of the cure. No one mentions those lost, hot days in the field, when Thomas kissed Rachel's tears away and invented worlds just so he could promise them to her, when she tore the skin off her own arms at the thought of living without him.”

  Lena

• “One of the strangest things about life is that it will chug on, blind and oblivious, even as your private world --your little carved-out sphere-- is twisting and morphing, even breaking apart.”

• “It's so strange how life works: you want something and you wait and wait and feel like it's taking forever to come. Then it happens and it's over and all you want to do is curl back up in that moment before things changed.”

  Lena

• “The most dangerous sickness are those that make us believe we are well”

• “You came from different starts and you'll come to different ends”

  Carol

• “...I know something that she doesn't know: 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 refuse to let them go.”

  Lena pg. 383

• “Hearts are fragile things.”

• “Love, the deadliest of all deadly things: It kills you both when you have it and when you don't.”

• “Sometimes I feel as though there are two me’s, one coasting directly on top of the other: the superficial me, who nods when she’s supposed to nod and says what she’s supposed to say, and some other, deeper part, the part that worries and dreams.”

• “A world without fear. Impossible.”

• “Most things, even the greatest movements on earth, have their beginnings in something small.”

• “Live free or die.”

• “Hate isn’t the most dangerous thing, he’d said. Indifference is.”

• “They say the cure is about happiness, but I understand now that it isn’t, and it never was. It’s about fear: fear of pain, fear of hurt, fear, fear, fear—a blind animal existence, bumping between walls, shuffling between ever-narrowing hallways, terrified and dull and stupid.”

• “Life isn’t life if you just float through it.”

• “Love: It will kill you and save you, both.”

• “The past is nothing but a weight. It will build inside you like a stone.”

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• It’s so strange how life works: You want something and you wait and wait and feel like it’s taking forever to come. Then it happens and it’s over and all you want to do is curl back up in that moment before things changed.

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• 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 on to them, and fight for them, and refuse to let them go.

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• Sometimes I feel like if you just watch things, just sit still and let the world exist in front of you—sometimes I swear that just for a second time freezes and the world pauses in its tilt. Just for a second. And if you somehow found a way to live in that second, then you would live forever.

  Highlighted by 109 Kindle customers

• Love: a single word, a wispy thing, a word no bigger or longer than an edge. That’s what it is: an edge; a razor. It draws up through the center of your life, cutting everything in two. Before and after. The rest of the world falls away on either side.

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• He who leaps for the sky may fall, it’s true. But he may also fly.

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• If you hear the past speaking to you, feel it tugging at your back and running its fingers up your spine, the best thing to do—the only thing—is run.

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• “You know you can’t be happy unless you’re unhappy sometimes, right?”

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• Everyone you trust, everyone you think you can count on, will eventually disappoint you.

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• You came from different starts and you’ll come to different ends:

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• Love, the deadliest of all deadly things: It kills you both when you have it and when you don’t. But that isn’t it, exactly. The condemner and the condemned. The executioner; the blade; the last-minute reprieve; the gasping breath and the rolling sky above you and the thank you, thank you, thank you, God. Love: It will kill you and save you, both.

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Setting & Locations edit see section history

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• 37 Brooks: An abandoned house in Deerfield Heights.
• The Wilds: Where the Invalids live, past the border.
• The Crypts: Portland's prison and insane asylum.
• St. Anne's School for Girls: The school where Hana and Lena met and graduate from in this book.
• Governor Square: A frequent running destination of Lena and Hana. There is a large statue of a man there that Hana and Lena call "The Govenor"
• Back Cove: One of the many beaches in Portland.
• Deering Highlands: The remote location where unapproved parties and music took place - primarily for young people.

First Sentence edit see section history

Table of Contents edit see section history

Glossary edit see section history

• dissipate: disperse or scatter
• irreparable: (of an injury or loss) impossible to rectify or repair
• imperceptible: impossible to perceive
• jettison: throw or drop (something) from an aircraft or ship
• chafe: (of something restrictive or too tight) make (a part of the body) sore by rubbing against it
• Invalids: People who live in the Wilds. They don't see love as a disease and don't believe in the cure.
• Unnaturalism: boys being attracted to boys and girls to girls
• Floaters: Government's term for websites full of unauthorized content, example, opinions and message boards, video clips, and music

Series & Lists edit see section history

Followed by Pandemonium.

Preceded by The Evolution of Bruno Littlemore, and followed by When I Grow Up.

Preceded by The Heroes.

Authors & Contributors edit see section history

1. Lauren Oliver (Author)

Other Contributors:

1. Hodder (Publisher)

First Edition edit see section history

Classification edit see section history

• Library of Congress: PZ7.O475Del
• Dewey: Add the Dewey Classification.

Notes for Parents edit see section history

Two F words, a few Sh--, no sex.

Subjects edit see section history

• Books › Teens › Literature & Fiction › Love & Romance
• Books › Children's Books › Issues

Links to Supplemental Material edit see section history

• Lauren Oliver - Official Author's website
• readmanybooks.blogspot.com: My reading blog, which contains my book trailer for Delirium.

More Books Like This edit see section history

Books Cited by This Book edit see section history