Delirium (2011) (edit title/settings)

Ridiculously Simplified Synopsis edit see section history

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Summary edit see section history

Characters edit see section history

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• Lena Ella Haloway Tiddle: 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. She and her best friend Hana have 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 (Alex Warren): 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. His father died while he was in the crypts.
• Alex. 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 (like air conditioning). She is also more rebellious than most people.
• Grace Tiddle: Lena's eight-year-old cousin who doesn't talk. Lena feels very protective of and 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. Married to William Tiddle.
• 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 though she was infected before the procedure.
• William Tiddle: Lena's uncle. Married to Carol Tiddle. Owns a store that Lena works in.
• 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.
• Allison Doveney: A girl who attends school with Lena and Hanna.
• Andrew Marcus: Helps Lena's uncle at Stop-N-Save. He picks his nose. A lot.
• Aunt Carol: Add a description of this character.
• Willow Marks
• Chris McDonnell
• Riley
• David
• Mrs. Johanson
• Frank Dorset
• Mrs. Marks
• Mrs. Scharff
• Gerry
• Uncle William
• Jillian Dawson
• Joseph
• Mary
• Mr. Raider
• Gracie
• God
• Magdalena Ella Haloway

Quotes edit see section history

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

  Alex Sheathes

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

  Lena's mom

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

  Hana

• “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 Ella Haloway

• “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 Ella Haloway

• “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 Ella Haloway

• “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 Ella Haloway

• “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 Ella Haloway

• “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 Ella Haloway

• “Hearts are fragile things.”

• “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.”

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

• “You may think the past has something to tell you. You may think that you should listen, should strain to make out its whispers, should bend over backward, stoop down low to hear its voice breathed up from the ground, from the dead places. You may think there's something in it for you, something to understand or make sense of. But I know the truth: I know from the nights of Coldness. I know the past will drag you backward and down, have you snatching at whispers of wind and the gibberish of trees rubbing together, trying to decipher some code, trying to piece together what was broken. It's hopeless. The past is nothing but a weight. It will build inside of you like a stone. Take it from me: 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.”

• “As soon as I look up, his eyes click unto my face. The breath whooshes out of my body and everything freezes for a second, as though I'm looking at him through my camera lens, zoomed in all the way, the world pausing for that tiny span of time between the opening and the closing of the shutter.”

  Lena

• “It's amazing how words can do that, just shred your insides apart. Sticks and stones may break my bones but words can never hurt me - such bullshit.”

  Lena

• “Somehow the pain only makes it better, more intense, more worth it.”

  Lena

• “I guess that's just part of loving people: You have to give things up. Sometimes you even have to give them up.”

  Lena

• “I was never cured.”

  Alex Sheathed

Setting & Locations edit see section history

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• 37 Brooks: An abandoned house in Deerfield Heights.
• Deering Highlands: The remote location where unapproved parties and music took place - primarily for young people.
• Back Cove: One of the many beaches in Portland.
• 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"

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
• Deliria: Love(diesease)

Series & Lists edit see section history

Followed by Pandemonium.

Authors & Contributors edit see section history

1. Lauren Oliver (Author)

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

Publisher's Note: 14+

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