Delirium

Delirium

I am so tired of this story. Lauren Oliver has rewritten Romeo and Juliet, West Side Story, Titanic, and Twilight. This time the love story is set in a dystopian Portland, Main and it ends how one would expect. *sigh*

The plot to the above stories goes something like this:

1. Take one female character and make something terribly wrong with her. In Romeo and Juliet, Juliet is a Capulet, West Side Story, Maria is Puerto Rican, Titanic, Rose is rich, and Twlight, Bella is human. This brings us to Lena in Delirium, her flaw is that she has low self esteem.

2. Take one mysterious guy who is kind of a jerk, and make the male and female characters fall in love. Romeo is a violent, but somehow Juliet still finds him sexy. Tony has similar qualities to Romeo, but yet again Maria finds him irresistible. Jack treats Rose like complete crap, but she comes back to him because he is cute. Edward is a flat out asshole to Bella, but that does not stop the two of them from falling in love. This brings us to Alex. On the most important day of Lena's life he creates a disruption so large that it screws up the results of a vital test. 

3. Start changing the girl because the fundamental flaw is so terrible that she unacceptable the way she is. Juliet and Romeo have sex and then get married, thus making Juliet a Montague. Maria and Tony do something similar. These are notable because of the transformational mythos around sex. Men can have as much sex as they want, women, however, can only have sex if it changes them. Jack takes Rose slumming it though the poor part of the boat, because it is totally impossible for Rose to have been written with any sort of empathy. Edward and Bella go though some push me, pull you, I love you, I don't love you, stay away from me, fine lets get married emotional abuse. Alex takes Lena to the Wilds and shows here that life can be totally different, but only with him. 

4. Kill them off. Romeo and Juliet both die. Tony dies thus leaving Maria alone and broken. Jack freezes to death leaving Rose emotionally traumatized. Edward changes Bella into an undead monster. (See what happened? She didn't actually die, she was just completely changed from what she was.) Alex gets shot, leaving Lena emotionally incapable of dealing with her new world. 

We push these stories on young girls and hold up these relationships as some sort of ideal love. That idea is so abhorrent to me. It is not love, it is abuse. I'm going to leave you with the words of Dorthy Parker:

 "This book is not to be tossed lightly aside, but to be hurled with great force."

I am now moving onto A Fine Balance. Crossing my fingers that this is better.

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