I picked up Divergent, by Veronica Roth, back in 2014 when the film was about to come out with intention of reading it before the film was released. However, clearly as I'm now reviewing it in 2016, that didn't happen.
Going into this book I was a little hesitant. It had been compared to the Hunger Games and even Harry Potter by some people and they are big names to live up to. However, this is one of those YA books that seems to have a big fandom around it and that gave me some high expectations. I'll say now this in no way lived up to either the Hunger Games or Harry Potter, but then I didn't really expect it to, but that doesn't mean it wasn't a good book.
Divergent is set in a dystopian Chicago where people are divided into five factions based on personality traits - 'Abnegation' for the selfless, 'Dauntless' for the brave, 'Candor' for the honest, 'Amity' for the peaceful and 'Erudite' for the intelligent. The story opens with Tris, who is 16 years old and was born into Abnegation. At the beginning of the story Tris is about to undergo a test so help her decide which faction she wants to belong to. Tris decides to become Dauntless. This means she has to undergo the Dauntless initition process which is ruthless, all whilst keeping the fact that she is 'Divergent' a secret. 'Divergent' means Triss had no clear answer for where she belonged after her test, and in Tris' world Divergent is dangerous.
This book was full of action. It did feel a bit like Triss was constantly training, constantly fighting and literally didn't stop. However, it was exciting and fast paced which made it easy to get through. If you like action packed, full on stories you will love this. The Dauntless training is hardcore and the first two thirds of the book follows Triss and her friends fighting their way through the training and coping with the thought of being kicked out of Dauntless and becoming factionless i.e. homeless.
Baring that in mind, there was a lot of violence that seemed a little pointless and unnecessary. The real story really starts about two thirds of the way in and that's when I found it got really exciting. Things began to unravel and make sense as a reader. I can imagine how the next two books would be a lot more enjoyable to read as the world is already developed and explained.
The characters in this were really well crafted and developed. All the characters bought something else to the story and all had a different story to tell. The only downfall of the characters was that they were typical YA characters. Tris is the bland, boring girl that no one thinks will be able to cope with the initiation but ends up being bad ass and coming out on top. There's nothing wrong with that, but how many times can YA authors use that cookie cutter for a female protagonist? As well as that Tris' love interest was very obvious. Good looking, alpha male who just happens to have a huge crush on the quiet child-like looking Tris but can't show her that soft side of him in front of others because 'it's best' for her. It's very typical YA.
A couple of down sides of the book where that I never felt there was any real explanation or development of the factions aside from the ones Tris was involved in. However, they might become more involved and explained later in the series. As well as that the villainous characters were quite over the top and therefore quite unrealistic.
Overall the book was fairly good and enjoyable. I can see how it's been compared to the Hunger Games but apart from the faction element there is nothing Harry Potter-esque about this book. I'd been interested to see where the series goes next and that's always a good thing.
What did you think of Divergent if you've read it? Let me know what you're reading at the moment in the comments.
Until next time,
No comments:
Post a Comment