Sentence Sneak Peek - Delirium

Delirium by Lauren Oliver

The first sentence from each chapter of Delirium, it's a mini summary of what you can expect to read.

* Spoilers are highlighted like so :)

"It has been sixty-four years since the president and the Consortium identified love as a disease, and forty-three since the scientists perfected a cure."

"The smell of oranges has always reminded me of funerals."

"My aunt insists on walking me down to the labora-tories, which, like all the government offices, are lumped together along the wharves: a string of bright white buildings, glistening like teeth over the slurping mouth of the ocean."

"By the time the nurse admits me into the waiting room, Hana is gone—vanished down one of the antiseptic white hallways and whisked behind one of the dozens of identical white doors—although there are about a half-dozen other girls milling around, waiting."

"That night, I have the dream again."

"That evening I can't concentrate."

"I was named after Mary Magdalene, who was nearly killed from love: "So infected with deliria and in violation of the pacts of society, she fell in love with men who would not have her or could not keep her."

"During the summers I have to help my uncle at the Stop-N-Save on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Saturdays, mostly stocking shelves and working behind the deli counter and occasionally helping with filing and accounting in the little office behind the cereal and dry goods aisle."

"That night, even after I'm in bed, Hana's words replay themselves endlessly in my head."

"I'd never understood how Hana could lie so often and so easily."

"Here is a secret about my family: My sister contracted the deliria several months before her scheduled pro-cedure."

"One hot evening toward the end of July I'm walking home from the Stop-N-Save when I hear someone call my name."

"When I get into the house it's even hotter than usual: a wet suffocating wall of heat."

"I once saw a news report about a brown bear that had acci-dentally been punctured by its trainer at the Portland circus during routine training."

"The next day, a Saturday, I wake up thinking of Alex."

"After that I find a way to see Alex almost every day, even on days I have to work at the store."

"August makes itself comfortable in Portland, breathes its hot and stinking breath over everything."

"The lights from the guard hut get suctioned away all at once like they've been sealed back behind a vault."

"One of the strangest things about life is that it will chug on, blind and oblivious, even as your private world—your little carved-out sphere—is twisting and morphing, even breaking apart."

"By some miracle, I must make a good enough impres-sion on Brian and Mrs. Scharff to satisfy Carol, even though I barely speak during the remainder of their visit (or maybe because I barely speak)."

"When I was in fourth grade, I went on a field trip to the Crypts."

"I have a sudden dread of going any farther."

"Even after the iron gates clang shut behind us and the Crypts recedes in the distance, the feeling of being penned in on all sides doesn't go away."

"Hana's already there when I arrive, leaning up against the chain-link fence that encircles the track, head tilted back and eyes closed against the sun."

"It's cold when I make my way toward 37 Brooks sometime after midnight, and I have to zip my nylon windbreaker up all the way to my chin."

"When I wake up again it's because someone is repeating my name."

"I've known time to stretch out like rings expanding out-ward over water; I've also known it to rush by with such force it leaves me dizzy."