It seems I’ve been reading a lot of dystopian novels lately
(and I can see how publishers are saying the genre is getting a bit saturated),
but the premise of this novel really intrigued me. In most dystopians - The
Maze Runner series or The Hunger
Games trilogy, for example – readers don’t know exactly what happened to
the world to bring about the new society.
We can guess – World War III or global warming or something, but in
those novels, the actual reason isn’t clearly identified.
In this novel it is.
Love. Love destroyed
society. The government and its
scientists have pinpointed the cause of the country’s problems. Love drives people crazy. Love overrides their logic and brings
about chaos.
But have no fear.
There is a cure for this horrible love disease (a.k.a. amor deliria
nervosa). In fact, at the age of
18 – after being segregated from “uncureds” of the opposite sex all of their
lives – the serum is administered, a husband/wife and college is chosen based
on test results and life will be blissfully stable and secure. Sounds wonderful, doesn’t it?
That’s what main character, Lena, thinks – especially after
her mother killed herself for love when Lena was a little girl. She’s terrified of ending up like her
mother – crying all of the time.
And yet, she also has memories of her mother laughing, dancing, and
singing – things that cured women would never do. These contradictory memories of her mother plague her and
she just wants to get the cure and not have the doubt, uncertainty, and pain
that occasionally takes hold of her.
Lena’s determination to be cured and safe is shaken when her
best friend convinces her to let loose and live a little in the weeks before
her procedure – inviting her to forbidden parties, and especially once she
meets Alex, who she assumes is safe because he has the scar of a “cured”
man. But looks can be deceiving.
Pulled into a world where she can laugh and dance and feel,
where she experiences danger and excitement, where she witnesses firsthand the
cruelty and disregard of the “cureds,”
where she finds out the information she receives from the government and
even from her family is often a lie, she has to question her fate. Does she really want to be
“cured”? And what about Alex? Can
she leave him behind? Forget him?
This was another of those books that I read in a day. Fast-paced and exciting, it kept me
turning the pages. Lena and Alex’s
romance was believable. Finally, a
male love interest who makes the reader fall as hard as the main
character.
And the ending is definitely shocking – leaving the reader
wanting more.
Yes, it follows the basic formula of all dystopian novels,
but the difference between this book and some of the others I’ve read lately,
is that I genuinely like Lena – even
though she is a bit frustrating at first because we know she shouldn’t get the
cure, but she hasn’t yet been convinced.
And I definitely like Alex.
He has all of those qualities that give a girl butterflies – humor,
kindness, sexiness, and he lets Lena be Lena, even when he doesn’t agree with
her. (Kind of reminds me of my
husband, actually.)
So, now that I’ve droned on and on – I DO recommend this
book. The second book of the
series Pandemonium comes out in March
2012, and I plan to be on the waiting list.
Read and enjoy!
Author's Website: http://www.laurenoliverbooks.com/
Author Interview:
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