First steps

Hello, my dear readers!

     A puzzle. According to the book, it is the deadliest of all deadly things: it kills you both when you have it and when you don’t? What is it?

     LOVE. What feelings and thoughts do you feel when you see or hear this word? Think. In my opinion, this word has so many meanings and definitions. For someone it’s happiness (the most sincere feeling), the butterflies in stomach, smiles and hugs, for others it’s obscurity, fear, pain, waiting…but for the society in which Lena lives love is a disease, named amor deliria nervosa which “affects your mind so that you cannot think clearly, or make rational decisions about your own well-being”.

     About the plot. The story is set in Portland, Maine (the United States), in an alternate present. There are such characters as

• ·         Lena Haloway is the main character. “I’m not ugly, but I’m not pretty, either. Everything is in-between”. Her mother committed suicide when Lena was six. Her mother didn’t believe that love was a disease, that’s why the cure couldn’t help her.
• ·         Rachel (Lena’s sister).She has had the procedure already. “She’s been disease free for nine years”.
• ·         Carol (Lena’s aunt). Lena lives with aunt Carol and her cousins.
• ·         Gracie and Jenny are Lena’s cousins. They also have no parents. Their father was suspected of being sympathizer; then he disappeared before his trial could begin. Marcia (their mother) died from heart attack a few months after her husband’s disappearance.
• ·         Hana (Lena’s best friend). She is a beautiful, sociable and cheerful girl. Her parents are rich. Lena says that Hana is much more beautiful and popular than she is.

     If you are 18, you should have the procedure that not to be infected by amor deliria nervosa. Lena has looked forward to the procedure for years, convinced that love is a horrible disease. Lena will have the procedure in 95 days (on her 18^th birthday). But now Lena is waiting Evaluation Day. The evaluation is the final test she will take (she has already had all her exams in school). According to the results of the evaluation, she will be assigned to a college and she can get paired. If she passes her evaluation test well, in the coming months the evaluators will send her a list of four or five approved matches. One of them will become her husband after she graduates college. The evaluators try to avoid any huge disparities in intelligence, temperament, social background and age.

     Evaluation Day has become. Lena and Hana go to the laboratories to pass their final exam. They are filling in papers and then the nurse is seeing them off to different rooms where they will be asked by the commission. During Lena’s Evaluation happens a strange incident, it is interrupted by screaming, drumming sound and the cows come thundering into the lab. Lena understands (when saw on the cows’ flanks: NOT CURE. DEATH) that Invalids (the people who live in the Wilds, the unregulated land that exists between recognized cities and towns) have done all it. Every couple of years they make some kind of protest in Portland. “The Invalids don’t see love as a disease, and they don’t believe in the cure. They think it’s kind of cruelty”. Suddenly, among all these scream and fuss, Lena hears the laugh. She notices the boy (“His hair is golden brown, like leaves in autumn just as they’re turning, and he has bright amber eyes”) who is standing and watching the chaos. And he is laughing. Lena is sure that he is an Invalid and one of the people responsible for the chaos. Will Lena fall in love with him? That is the question!

     In conclusion, I want to share with you an idea which set me thinking. “You can’t be really happy unless you’re unhappy sometimes”. This is the truth of life. We wouldn’t appreciate happy moments if we didn’t know what the difficulties, disappointments, offenses were. I remember the talk between friends from the book P.S. I Love You, which explains right and simple things by simple words.

  - ''if only every minute of my life was filled with perfect little moments I would never moan again"
- "nobody's life is filled with perfect little moments. And if they were, they wouldn't be perfect little moments. They would just be normal. How would you ever know happiness if you'd never experienced downs?"

With love,

Kate