Actual Rating: 2.5 
 I love you. Remember. They cannot take it. 
 I think I struggled hard with reading and rating this book. While I liked the writing for the most part, the book proved to be a bit slow. I understand that it's not a fast-paced plot, but the storytelling itself wasn't an attention-grabber. Pretty much, nothing jumped out of the page to make it exciting. 
 Delirium tackles an intriguing and, somewhat, unique premise, which constitutes the idea of love as an abomination, as a disease that needs to be cured. I think some of us have fantasized about curing our residual feelings or unrequited feelings at least once. 
 This book takes that concept and applies it to the idea of love in general; romantic love, platonic love, religious love, unconditional love and many more. The dystopian world in Delirium has banned love, and labeled it as "amor deliria nervosa", which can be mostly displayed by physical symptoms. 
 The book's protagonist Lena Halloway falls victim to the disease a few months before she's to receive her treatment. The guy who infects her and turns her world upside down is Alex. For a book that considers love to be a taboo, I felt like the chemistry/romance between Lena and Alex should have been a bright shining beacon in the book, but it just ended up being dull and uninspiring. 
 While the process of the two of them falling for each other was slightly sweet, it didn't really hold much innocence to it, considering that Lena was experiencing an emotion that she supposedly hadn't really felt before. Also, there really wasn't much concrete foundation on why these two were drawn to each other, other than infatuation. There wasn't any strong proof that made us believe they were really in love with each other, especially since such an emotion was dangerous. Alex mostly seemed one dimensional. 
 In addition, Oliver's dystopian classifies love as a disease, but I felt like she just focused on the surface of it, like just the word itself and the physical characteristics that come with it. But love isn't just about what you can see or its declaration. It's more than that. She doesn't dig deeper into the society, into the effects of love being outlawed. And what of the other emotions love instigates? It's almost as if she just focuses on the issue it creates for Alex and Lena's romance. While I get that it's more about the central characters, a dystopian book usually tackles the issues from a broader perspective and then applies it to the characters. 
 The whole idea of not being with the one you love can make you want/decide to kill yourself seemed a bit undeveloped to me. Especially since it dealt with it from a Romeo and Juliet aspect (then again, I'm not a big fan of that particular work by Shakespeare). What about the love one has for their children? Isn't that supposed to count too? In this dystopian society, do mothers also kill themselves when they can't show their children love? What happens to the children who need love from their parents? How does it affect their childhood? Lena was brought up with love in her earlier years, but she isn't contrasted with children who had such a deficiency. Children whose mothers never showed them affection behind closed curtains. 
 However, though the book does have some issues. I enjoyed the writing. Oliver's prose is beautiful, in the sense that it's almost poetic. But it doesn't really give much substance to the slow moving plot. I'm probably going to keep reading, because I want to satisfy my curiosity on if (view spoiler)[Hana was the one who outed Alex and Hana, it seemed predictable if she did, but it may add an interesting layer to the story (hide spoiler)] 
 Overall, Delirium left much to be desired. Hopefully, the sequel is better.