Divergent by Veronica Roth Reviewed by Dani and Steph.
Dani’s rating: 5 stars Steph’s rating: 5 stars Overall rating: 5 stars
Goodreads Synopsis:
In
Beatrice Prior's dystopian Chicago, society is divided into five
factions, each dedicated to the cultivation of a particular
virtue--Candor (the honest), Abnegation (the selfless), Dauntless (the
brave), Amity (the peaceful), and Erudite (the intelligent). On an
appointed day of every year, all sixteen-year-olds must select the
faction to which they will devote the rest of their lives. For Beatrice,
the decision is between staying with her family and being who she
really is--she can't have both. So she makes a choice that surprises
everyone, including herself.
During
the highly competitive initiation that follows, Beatrice renames
herself Tris and struggles to determine who her friends really are--and
where, exactly, a romance with a sometimes fascinating, sometimes
infuriating boy fits into the life she's chosen. But Tris also has a
secret, one she's kept hidden from everyone because she's been warned it
can mean death. And as she discovers a growing conflict that threatens
to unravel her seemingly perfect society, she also learns that her
secret might help her save those she loves . . . or it might destroy
her.
Debut
author Veronica Roth bursts onto the literary scene with the first book
in the Divergent series--dystopian thrillers filled with electrifying
decisions, heartbreaking betrayals, stunning consequences, and
unexpected romance.
Dani's review:
If
you judge a book by its cover, you might notice the cover’s resemblance
to The Hunger Games symbol of a mockingjay enclosed in a circle. You
might also wonder what the word “divergent” means.The dictionary
definition of divergent is “tending to be different or developing in
different directions”. The key word is different.
Dystopia young adult fiction is becoming more and more popular since
Suzanne Collins’s introduction of The Hunger Games. I have read young
adult dystopias such as The Hunger Games (of course), Matched by Ally
Condie, and Delirium by Lauren Oliver, but this book provides some
serious competition for the king (or queen?) of dystopias, The Hunger Games.
Tris
is such a strong female protagonist, something that has become rare in
the realm of YA fiction. The book begins with Tris preparing to take her
aptitude test. The aptitude test supposedly will decide which faction
she will fall into. Later in the story, Tris learns that the aptitude
test is not a good judge of who you really are. The factions have become
more corrupt over the years, as Tris learns when she encounters Eric,
one of her instructors in the initiation process. Eric is one of the
major antagonists in Divergent and wants the factions to be run a
different way. He has a different view of what each faction should be
doing.
Of
course, there is a romance. Tris’s other initiation instructor, a
mysterious and somewhat aloof boy nicknamed Four, begins to work his way
into her heart from the very beginning.
“I
roll off, and I would have fallen face-first onto a wood floor if he
had not caught me. “He” is the young man attached to the hand I grabbed.
He has a spare upper lip and a full lower lip. his eyes are so deep-set
that his eyelashes touch the skin under his eyebrows, and they are dark
blue, a dreaming, sleeping, waiting color.” -Tris’s first impression of Four.
Four
is not your normal swoon-worthy YA book boyfriend. He is not a
particularly sympathetic person, but Tris wouldn’t love him if he was.
He tries to protect Tris in every way that he can, but he has his own
fears that Tris must help him conquer. I love that this was not a “love
at first sight” story. The romance started slowly through a
student-crush-on-hot-instructor relationship, a kind of admiration for
this ideal member of her faction. Four sees how brave and selfless Tris
is, and sees someone who might actually understand his broken past. And
yes, Tris does help Four begin to unravel the tangles and snags of his
past.
The
basic plot of this book if Tris trying to survive her initiation
process. Only the top 10 of possibly 20 (not telling you how many
initiates there are) initiates will fully join the faction they chose.
Some were born in the faction, and others were transfers. Those who do
not make it become factionless, essentially the homeless of this
dystopia world. Loyalty is very important in this world, as shown by the
phrase and pledge “Faction before blood.” Also, there is a shocking
surprise near the end of this book that involves Eric, Tris’s
instructor, and another major antagonist. Tris is one of the few who is
able to save her original faction and the faction she transferred to
because of a special “mutation” in her mind. She will have to hide this
special aspect of her mind because the leaders of each faction will
most likely kill her if she reveals it. Why does she have to hide this?
Will Tris be able to claw her way up to became a full member of her new
faction? Will she be brave enough to fend off the various obstacles,
both mental and physical, thrown in her way? What happened in Four’s
past and why is he called Four? All of these questions and many more
will be answered if you read Divergent!
Steph’s Review (she feels the need to do one for this book):
Before picking up Divergent (actually, the only reason I even bothered
to pick it up was because of Danielle’s recommendation), I had some
serious skepticism about it. I admit I read plenty of reviews on
Goodreads and lots of people said things like ,”It was so Hunger Games
like”, and “just unoriginal”. It got pretty high ratings, but I thought
the 4-5 stars were from people who just wanted, and got, another dose of
Suzanne Collins’s The Hunger Games. I started reading Divergent, thinking I would only be disappointed in the end.
Well gosh was I wrong. Remind me not to doubt your judgement too much again Dani. Why thank you.
One lesson I learned from reading this book: Just because a book is in
the “dystopian” genre, that doesn’t mean that it will be a Hunger Games
or 1984 copycat.
Divergent follows the story of Beatrice (Tris), who has a choice to
make among the 5 factions of her nation, which will map out certain
actions in her life: Abnegation (the selfless), Amity (the peaceful),
Candor (the honest), Dauntless (the brave), and Erudite (the
intellectual). She has to take an aptitude test to see which faction she
fits the most strongly into, which is supposed to help her in her
decision-making process, even though it honestly isn’t a good test for
your real feelings.
But things don’t go as expected for Tris, and she is left with a
decision: her family, or her independence and freedom. She wants both,
but she can only have one. Which one does she want more? If she chooses
family, she will be shackled to the rules of the Abnegation faction for
the rest of her life--“you must always put others before yourself”,
something that is has never been easy for Tris from the start. If she
chooses her independence and transfers to a different faction, she will
never be able to see family again. Her choice is pretty obvious at this
point, but I won’t spell it out, just in case you don’t put the pieces
together. She must face the challenges that come with her decision,
obstacles that she never knew she would have to overcome. She learns,
the hard way, that your decisions can bring consequences unto yourself
and those you care about.
This plot is NOTHING like the Hunger Games. Hell, this book doesn’t
even have a dystopian feel to it in the beginning since Tris has a choice.
The aptitude test didn’t decide for her, it only gave her strengths and
weaknesses. If I was a total clueless and I didn’t ever hear about
Divergent as a dystopian novel, I would have read the 1st half of the
book thinking that its world was just a completely fictional world with
the story of a girl’s problems in her faction. Things do seem to turn
upside-down for Tris later in the book, but I love that her earlier
experiences can make her tough and strong for what is inevitably going
to pass. There is a love story here--between her and the one nicknamed
“Four”, but it is pretty subtle in the beginning especially since Four
seems like the cold-hearted bad boy :). It was nice to see Tris help
Four with his fears; I think they really strengthen one another. No,
this love story is not a “ridiculous-love-story-that-Steph-hates”.
All in all, I would recommend this book to people that are particularly
fond of the dystopian genre. It’s a great model book. If you aren’t a
big fan of dystopias, I would still say to give this one a chance,
because it might make you like the genre a little more. It isn’t a book
that is heavy on the oppression, so much so that it is noticeable within
the first few chapters of the book. You never really get a
empty-stomach sense of foreboding, only butterflies because you are so
excited about what’s going to happen next. I was reeling throughout the
entire book, and I had a hard time falling asleep after putting it down.
The dystopian feel creeps in slowly, so that it feels natural and that
it should be there by the time you actually notice it. Veronica Roth
shows the reader glimpses of the corruptness in the system while Tris is
learning of the same thing. You can...become Tris in this book. A full 5-stars!
P.S. I stayed up until 3 A.M. to read this book. Then I had to force myself to go to bed when I had 50 pages left of it.
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