64: Delirium: The Special Edition, by Lauren Oliver (2011 hardcover)

It's probably not fair to this book that I (temporarily, I'm guessing) reached my fill of teen dystopian romances midway through reading it.  It's a genre I generally like, but this one leaned a bit too far toward the romance end of things for my taste; I can tolerate the romance as long as the world developed behind it is interesting and compelling.  In this book, however, the romance is center stage.

Why this took me by surprise, I don't know, as it's basically stated on the jacket cover.  After all, 17-year-old Lena lives in a world where love is considered a life-threatening disease, where 60+ years earlier scientists came up with a surgical "cure" to relieve people of its symptoms.  The surgery to prevent delirium takes place at age 18, though, and any reader of TeenLit knows what will happen in those circumstances--especially after learning that Lena's mother's cure just never took, even after three attempts, and she ended up committing suicide when Lena was a child.  And then she meets a boy from the wilds: the areas outside the highly policed and controlled cities, where people don't get the cure and still choose their own mates, ways of life, etc.

Despite my lack of enthusiasm for Delirium, I must admit I'll likely read the sequel; writing about it now makes me consider some of the story elements and concepts I did like, such as making me reflect in how quickly a culture can be changed due to revolution/technology/chaos.  I think I just read myself into a genre rut here and need a bit of a break.   

(By the way, if you were wondering what is so special about the Special Edition: there's a Q & A section and the first chapter of the sequel. I actually chose it because I liked the cover better.)