Summary

We experience this world through the eyes of seventeen year old Lena. Her fear and nervousness about the procedure are only trumped by her eagerness to be cured before the disease inevitably infects her the way it did her mother. She observes her neighbors home vandalized because they are suspected of being sympathizers to rumored `Invalids' who reject the cure, the detached parents who never bond with their children and appear not to care when their child is hurt right in front of them, the sister who was dragged screaming from a secret boyfriend to the clinic to be `cured' and return later serene and calm with the telltale triangular scar behind her ear. The most horrifying thing about this society is that no one fights back. Even Lena who witnesses some of the atrocities firsthand has been so indoctrinated by the government that she accepts this is the only way to stay safe. She does not come easily to the other side, and it's that painful, heartbreaking, utterly real journey that has so engrained Delirum into my mind.