Delirium is basically the average YA dystopian romance. You know the basic formula: girl + boy + police state + forbidden romance = freedom fighting and epic romance. So on this front, Delirium isn't all that original in its material. The whole idea is the United States is now an oppressive regime where the government regulates literally everything in their citizen's lives. How they do this (beyond the normal censorship and fascism) is by requiring all citizens to have a procedure to "cure" them of the disease inherent in everyone called Amore Delirium Nervosa, also known as "love". The government in essence lobotomizes its citizens in order to make them docile, remove emotion, and to silence their free thoughts and ideas. They even call their main book of doctrine "The Book of SHHH" which may be a little on the nose but also sums the whole approach up. In this world "love" is a criminal act. We follow our heroine, Lena, as she falls in love and learns the true nature of her world. 
 Strangely enough, the whole time I was reading this it kind of reminded me of Twilight and Lena reminded me a lot of Bella. Obviously, these are two entirely different universes and the plots are fairly different overall so I think what draws my comparison is the romance. Lena and Alex have this desperate love between them and as much as they know this love could get them killed, losing it is equally as unfathomable. On the other hand, maybe I'm entirely wrong on this one because Alex isn't a fraction as creepy as Edward was, so I suppose there's that. Alex doesn't sneak into Lena's room and watch her sleep or try to control her life like Edward does. It's really just the undercurrent of their love that feels similar. They have that same all-consuming desire for each other that in large part made me overlook all the creepy stuff in Twilight because the love was so wonderful. Since Lena is the sole narrator (like Bella) we only get to see Alex (Edward) through her eyes and to her he is the EVERYTHING. He's so far up on a pedestal because her love for him is so intense. They're a couple you want to see stay together forever. 
 As far as heroines go, Lena really wasn't all that great. She's not a badass freedom fighter. She's just a scared girl in the throes of first love. Personally, I love a badass, capable heroine who doesn't need saving. This was not the case with Lena. I got the impression that Delirium is a story of all the formative events in the back story of a revolutionary, freedom fighting heroine. We were getting to see the events that will shape Lena in the future instead of meeting her as her future self from the beginning. I can only hope that Lena will grow into a kick ass character in Pandemonium. 
 I want to take a minute to talk about that CLIFFHANGER ending!!! Don't worry; I'll put it in a spoiler! 
 (view spoiler)[ What the fuck Lauren Oliver?! After all that Alex sacrifices himself to save Lena and get her into the wilds. WHY!!!!??? That's how you're going to do him? Dick move, Oliver! Additionally, I wasn't really sure why such a hassle was gone through for Lena. Why didn't they just shoot her on the spot instead of capturing her and sending her back to her family for an early procedure? Then to have things end with an epic motorcycle chase with helicopters and about a hundred regulators... Why waste the resources on one girl? 
 The other side plot left open is what is to become of Hana. What's she going to be like after the procedure? Will it work? Will she be part of the resistance? (hide spoiler)] 
 Delirium didn't reinvent the wheel here. It has a cool concept and was engaging enough for me to want to finish the story and see where it will go in the next book, Pandemonium. I just wish that everything was "turned up to 11" so to speak. I think the world could have been eerier. I wanted to feel the revolution bubbling under the surface. Instead we just have robot people living average lives. The resistance wasn't really the focus here. The foremost concern in Delirium was the romance which makes sense seeing as this is a story about love being illegal. I just think it could have been done better. It needed that something extra to really make it exciting. Let's hope this is remedied in the next book.