Along with Meg Cabot, Brandon Mull, Sarah Dessen, and lots of other really good authors who I can't get enough of.
Now, I've read the two books she has published already and I liked them. But I would only give BEFORE I FALL a three star and DELIRIUM a four star. Oliver's writing is beautiful. Her stories are powerful. Overall, reading her books has really brought back my faith in young adult writers. So the problem I have with her books wasn't the writing or the plot or even the endings (which make me think twice about liking her books). The problem I have is the characters.
Now, her characters aren't flat. Her characters are dumb, or two-dimensional, or cliche, or cringe-worthy lame. Her characters were just hard to relate to. In BEFORE I FALL, the main character is extremely popular, best friends with the prettiest girl in school, and girlfriend to the hottest guy in school. Throughout the book she remains so. I just couldn't relate to her and I found myself detached from her story. It was a good story with a really good message, but I just didn't find myself loving the heroine.
With DELIRIUM it was a little bit easier to put myself in the main character's shoes, but it was still a little difficult. This time she wasn't popular, but she was still best friends with the hottest girl in school. This time she wasn't the girlfriend of the hottest guy in school, but she still ended up with a really handsome guy. And Oliver described her as an in-between kind of girl, a nobody. She doesn't sound like a nobody to me.
I don't know. That was really the only problem I had with her books. BEFORE I FALL was a bit slow in parts and I did skip a couple of pages, but my full attention was on DELIRIUM, and in the end I did find myself liking the main character enough to want to know more. But another thing about DELIRIUM: I still want to know more about the heroine's 6 year old cousin.
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