This book is appropriately named, because I have divergent thoughts on it. It’s fantastic. It’s frustrating. But mostly fantastic.
First of all, I loved it. I was already two weeks into my challenge with no more than a page of anything read when I opened it up last night and read the entire book in one sitting. Veronica Roth tells a very engaging tale of a dystopian world made up of five factions, each intended to uphold a particular trait: Abnegation (selflessness), Amity (peaceful), Candor (honesty), Dauntless (brave) and Erudite (knowledgeable). The story opens with our protagonist approaching her decision day, where she must choose to either remain with her faction or choose a new one, thus being separated from her family forever. As the saying in this world goes, “faction before family”.
-As I don’t intend to include spoilers for this review, I’ll just generalize my conflicting thoughts about the rest of the story as a whole-
I felt like I had picked up the Hunger Games. Divergent was very similar and yet very different. The story was extremely fast-paced, making it both hard to put down and somewhat difficult to get my bearings. The characters developed at a rapid pace; the timeline of the entire book is probably a month or less. For the most part this is okay, causing only occasionally hiccoughs in reading, but there are certain moments where it feels like the story jumps from point D to Y (interpret that as, jumping the story significantly but not all the way forward, fairly unrealistically and only somewhat excusably).
Additionally, I wasn’t sure what to make of the main character, Tris. I find it ridiculous that she and the other initiates are supposedly sixteen, when contrasted with the expectations placed upon them to determine their faction for life and pass the initiation tests. On the flip side, it creates a powerful message about the repercussions of the decisions one makes. The accelerated timeline becomes an issue here, because those formally initiated into the faction after training/testing are immediately sent to their lifelong occupations…and they’re still only sixteen. Perhaps sixteen-year-olds are different in the dystopian future.
I enjoyed the perspective of the protagonist, but at times she turned into a flat character with overdone love misunderstandings and love triangles. HOWEVER, on the other hand, these situations were resolved quickly, and did not consume much time in the book. Roth followed the expected storyline, but she did not linger on it. And in all honesty, I loved watching this romance develop in such a positive way.
The character development and plot line were just strange. Perhaps the character development was appropriate for such a fast paced story, and since the initiates had chosen the faction they felt they belonged to, they quickly adapted to who they felt they really were. It just happened very, very quickly. Ditto for the plot line. It was a relief to see a story not drawn out with frequent mishaps, interrupted conversations and misunderstandings, but don’t get me wrong: Divergent had them. Yet Roth utilized them reasonably well, and the overall impression was different. I thought Tris was both the stupidest, most ignorant person alive and brilliant in a unique way.
Despite the issues I had with this book, I do plan on reading the next two books immediately. I’m caught up in the world, and while I question things about it, I am unable to predict where Veronica Roth will take her readers next, and that’s got me hooked…but I admit I am crossing my fingers, hoping she doesn’t miss the mark.
Also, I’ve NEVER been more excited to see a book come to the theaters (March 21!). Mostly because of one character, but I’ll not spoil any more than that! 😉
musings of a reader. 