Book Title: Delirium by Lauren Oliver
In a futurist America, at the age of eighteen everyone receives the government-mandated cure that prevents people from falling in love. After the procedure, you will not have a connection with your best friend, and you may not even enjoy hobbies you enjoyed beforehand. Parents do not even love their children; they just seem to tolerate them. Lena has ninety-five days before her procedure is to occur, and she cannot wait. Her mother had the procedure done four times because it did not work, and Lena worries that she will inherit the disease and be like her mother and end up committing suicide.
Lena always does what is right and safe because she is scared until her best friend, Hana, convinces her to go to an underground party as their "last chance to do anything." Lena runs into Alex at the party, and after talking with him, she decides to meet him the next day. Normally guys and girls cannot socialize, but because Alex has been "cured," Lena is "safe" with him. Their friendship blooms into a romance, but they have to keep it hidden from everyone.
In both Matched and Delirium, characters are matched to their ideal mate, but in Matched the government makes the choice for you and in Delirium, characters are given a choice of four people to choose from. Maybe that's like when the student council sells the love grams (?), in which you answer the multiple choice questions about what you like and don't like, and then a computer determines your top four ideal dates.
I enjoyed reading the literary techniques that Oliver uses, and she even draws a parallel of Lena's love with Alex to Romeo and Juliet's doomed love. All four of these novels focus on people finding out the "truth" about their government and instead of accepting it like George and Hazel Bergeron, they decide to retaliate like Harrison Bergeron.
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