Author: Veronica Roth
Pages: 487
Rating: 2/5
Link: Divergent
Nothing is stable, the world and the system with which it is governed, cycles continuously. A post dystopian world clamors for stability and a utopian world lives at the risk of losing its balance and dipping into dystopia.
The Divergent by Veronica Roth is a dystopian Chicago, where people are divided into factions affiliated to their personality. At the age of sixteen every teenager has to choose a faction. He can be brave like the Dauntless, Intelligent like the Erudite, Honest like the Candor, Selfless like the Abnegation or Peaceful like the Amity. The fate of not choosing a faction or not clearing its initiation is a fate worse than death as it means being factionless.
Faction before Blood is the idea. Once you choose a faction it becomes a part and parcel of your life. The key to choosing the right faction is through a simulation test that will tell you to which faction you belong. But for sixteen year old Beatrice Price the test doesn’t work. The only thing that would have told her where she belonged, failed to do so.
The choice Beatrice makes at the choosing ceremony surprises everyone. During the initiation in her new faction, Beatrice would go through intense training, competition and the psychological pressure of not making the cut; the threat of becoming a factionless looming large. The stable yet dystopian Chicago is about to tumult into further chaos, and Beatrice must guard her secret more than ever.
Among numerous dystopian fictions, divergent presents a very novel concept. The story is brilliant but the writing is very average. The sentences are simple, short and lack imagination. The whole novel is written in this way: He did that. I did this. She said that. I said this, which makes it very irritating.
I felt that the brilliant imaginative mind that put together the idea did not do justice in putting it into words. The narration is in first person, and immensely boring. The novel reads like a diary of a thirteen year old girl. Reading it was a bumpy experience, with no flow between the sentences. In my opinion, not a single scene was moving enough to connect with the reader. The reader can just skim through the pages even during the most emotional and daring scenes. Everything from romance and comedy to grief reads like a sentence, uninterestingly making the first word meet the last.
The novel does not live up to the fame, the electrifying decisions were not powerful enough, the breathtaking betrayals were no surprise at all, the astounding consequences were of no significance and the unexpected romance was such a cliché.
Great review! I totally agree.
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Thanks! I am currently reading the next one in the series, let’s see how that one goes…
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Cool. What faction do you think you would be in?
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That’s what I find very difficult. I love helping people but I am not too selfless, I am brave but not dauntless brave, I am definitely not candor, I lie all the time and that too flawlessly. I am a peace loving person but I take a grudge too easily and revenge is bitter sweet for me. I love reading and studying and learning. So I guess I would be erudite!!!! What about you?
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I couldn’t be Candor, I have too many secrets.
I couldn’t be Dauntless because I don’t like hurting people.
I could be any of the other three, I guess. I took an online aptitude test, and got high aptitude in all three.
I guess we’re all Divergent, really. We need all of the qualities of the factions.
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I would give it a 4/5, though the romance was very cliche and she did act younger than 16.
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I loved the concept and the idea behind the novel but not the writing. I find the writing a bit immature. For the first time I find the movie better than the novel.
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Have you seen Insurgent? The movie was COMPLETELY different to the book, but the way it was portrayed was so much better than the book, and it was more action than romance.
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Nope haven’t seen it yet. I am still reading insurgent. Those movies are the reason why I am reading the novels first, so I could fill any gaps in the movie.
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What did you think of Four as a character?
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I loved the characters in this novel, they were all so well developed like the author put in a lot of thought building them. My fav character was Natalie prior. As far as four goes, I loved him, hot, caring, troubled past, silent, determined she couldn’t have made a better hero for the story.
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But is he really the hero though? Or is that Tris? Or, could you not count Jeanine as a hero of her own accord, for fighting so hard for what she believed in?
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Who is your fav character?
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Well, I like Cara (Will’s brother) as there is something witty and observant about her, Tris’s mother because she died for her daughter, and Johanna because she was kind and peaceful unless there was no other solution (may be book 3)
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Also, have you read the Hunger Games? If so, Divergent vs. Hunger Games. Discuss.
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Nope. I watched the movies and then never got to read the books. Are they good?
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They are, actually. Better than the movies in my opinion!
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