Lauren Oliver
The early 2000s saw a wave of science fiction and fantasy writing aimed at younger readers, a period when novelists working in those genres found a significant audience among children and young adults. Lauren Oliver came up as a writer during that era, working in English across those same territories.
Born on November 8, 1982, in Queens, Oliver is an American novelist who writes in the genres of science fiction, fantasy, and children's fiction. She was educated at the University of Chicago and later at New York University, giving her a grounding in two distinct academic environments before she turned her attention to writing fiction.
Oliver's notable works include Before I Fall, Delirium, and Pandemonium. These titles sit within the science fiction and fantasy genres she has worked in throughout her career, and they also place her within the broader tradition of children's writing — a tradition that takes seriously the imaginative and speculative questions that fiction can pose to younger readers. Her output spans both standalone work and multiple titles, reflecting the range of formats available to a writer moving across these genres.
Before I Fall is among the works most closely associated with her name, alongside Delirium and Pandemonium. Oliver's writing is in English and directed, in part, toward younger audiences, which positions her within a field of children's and science fiction writing that has drawn considerable critical and popular attention in the United States. As an American writer born in Queens and educated at two universities, her career as a novelist has produced a body of work that spans science fiction, fantasy, and children's fiction — three genres that, taken together, define the shape of what she has contributed as a writer.
Quotes by Lauren Oliver
Lauren Oliver's insights on:
Less than a month ago all of August still stretched before us - long and golden and reassuring, like an endless period of delicious sleep
I guess that's what saying good-bye is always like – like jumping off an edge. The worst part is making the choice to do it. Once you're in the air, there's nothing you can do but let go.
All this time, I thought we were growing apart because I was leaving yiu behind. But really it was the reverse. She was learning to lie. She was learning to love.
I guess that's what saying good-bye is always like — like jumping off an edge. The worst part is making the choice to do it. Once you're in the air, there's nothing you can do but let go.
Love: a single word, a wispy thing, a word no bigger or longer than an edge. That’s what it is: an edge, a razor. It draws up through the center of your life, cutting everything in two. Before and after. The rest of the world falls away on either side.
I guess that's what saying goodbye is always like- like jumping off an edge. The worst part is making the choice to do it. Once you're in the air, there's nothing you can do but let go.
The butterflies are working their way up from my stomach into my head, making me feel dizzy, and I try to calm myself by imagining the ocean outside, its ragged breathing, the seagulls turning pinwheels in the sky. It will be over soon, I tell myself. It will be over soon and then you’ll go home, and you’ll never have to think about the evaluation again.
I guess that's just part of loving people: You have to give things up. Sometimes you even have to give them up.
