I really like Lauren Oliver. I really do. Her one book, Before I Fall, was utterly fantastic. I loved it. A lot. 
 Because of her flowing and perfect writing style, I expected to enjoy this book almost as much (not quite as much because, come on, the plot has to do with breaking past a loveless society to find true love. Books about Love are not my forte. I'm not much of a romantic.) 
 I want to make one thing clear: I did not write this book off before reading it. 
 I wanted to read it. I expected to like it- nay, even adore it. I expected a lot more than I got. 
 The reason for that, was that it felt like a rip-off and had too many plot holes for me. Also, Lena drove me nuts. 
 First of all, let's go back and remember The Giver. You may have had to read it in Middle School. That book was one of the first YA dsytopias to exist. That book explored an emotionless society where everything was set and organized. That book had something to say and said it well. 
 This book? Not so much. Much of the setting felt like a copy from The Giver. The only thing that didn't feel Giverish was the romance and the Wilds. Those reminded me pretty strongly of Uglies by Scott Westerfeld. 
 So, Airship, you may be asking. If you liked The Giver, and this explores some of the same themes... why didn't you like it? 
 Because The Giver didn't do things in halves. The Giver was a society where emotion in general was not encouraged. In Delirium, it's just love. All of the characters, even the cured, can feel different emotions. They get angry, annoyed, frightened. They just don't feel love. How in the world could someone just take out the love part of the brain? It just doesn't make sense. If they had gone the complete route and said that no emotion was allowed, I would have understood and been able to accept it a bit more readily. 
 Another thing that I found hard to buy in this book, was that a society would be so against love. Look at our world today. What does it revere? The heart. Emotions. Love. What's being poured into the kids of this generation? The classic Disney line: "Follow your heart." I have a difficult time believing that that would suddenly just change. On its own, this wouldn't be so problematic, but coupled with the previous issue I had, it became unpalatable. 
 I will say that the idea love being a disease, was very interesting. I liked the fear that she cultivated among the society in contracting the "disease." That was really unique and interesting. 
 Already you're seeing that I could not like this book. And this is just the basic premise of the plot. I haven't even gotten to how annoying Lena was (life, she was a wimp, and it seemed like every page she couldn't breath and was freaking out about something, or being generally dumb,) or how Alex had almost no characterization, and how the book ended on a big cliffhanger. But you know what? I've mentioned all that now, and I don't need to go way into it. 
 These are reasons why I, personally, didn't click with this book. The love story, the absolute beauty of Lauren Oliver's writing story, and yes, the premise might draw many readers in. That's okay. I can see how people who prefer love stories to intense dystopias could really like this book. If you do, that's awesome. I wish that I had been able to. 
 As it is, I'm giving this book a 1.5 star rating out of 5. 
 Or maybe I'll round it up to two.