What is the author's style in Delirium by Lauren Oliver?

The novel is written in the first person in the present tense from Lena's point of view. The narrator is always in the "now" of the novel, telling what is happening and how she is feeling at the moment. As a narrator, Lena communicates her emotions and her experiences of the world. The reader travels along on her inner journey with her, seeing how fearful she is in the early parts of the novel, and how her fears change as she is exposed to love.

Lena is emotional and poetic and the reader experiences her emotions because of the novel's first-person point of view. While little may be happening in the world around Lena, in her inner world, she is experiencing fear, trauma, or excitement. Lena describes her emotions and perceptions in detail. The house takes on a life of its own as Lena sneaks out at night for the first time. On Lena's first, uneventful trip over the supposedly electrified fence, the trip the reader takes is in Lena's imagination, as she fearfully pictures what might happen.

Lena's point of view changes from the beginning to the end of the novel, so the reader sees both perspectives. At the beginning of the novel, Lena experiences emotional pain and looks forward to the procedure that will cure her. She is naive and believes in the propaganda that the government has fed to her. At the end of the novel, Lena has experienced love and will resist the procedure with every fiber of her being. She sees the lies the government propagates. Because the reader travels on this journey with Lena, her awakening also wakes the reader to the issues of tyranny and freedom, fear, and love that the novel addresses.