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A review by laurenmichellebrock
Divergent by Veronica Roth
4.0
I am often reluctant to jump on YA bandwagons. I am often the girl who geeks out about a popular series long after is over (see also: Harry Potter), so when my 16-year-old cousin told me I needed to read this book, I shrugged it off, only reconsidering when I purchased Divergent as a Kindle Daily Deal for 2.99, but further shrugging it off until a few days ago when she persisted with her pleas. I finally gave in and decided to read the book. For the first ten chapters, I was not convinced and even considered not finishing it. I expressed such thoughts on Twitter only to be reassured that, yes, the book is slow to start, but once you hit that sweet spot you will not want to put it down.
This, in fact, did occur, surprisingly in chapter 10, where I had left off wondering if I even wanted to finish. The book begins with a lot of description about the factions and how they are split up and what each one represents and what it means for Beatrice to turn 16 and decide her own fate: stay loyal to her family or branch out into a life of her own? I was not buying into this world very much until Beatrice "Tris" Prior begins training as a Dauntless, which is intense and grueling, because if you do not make the top ten, you are factionless, which means you are not supported by the government and rely mostly on the factioned people to sustain you, which doesn't come from many unless they are part of Abnegation, the faction where Tris grew up, and the faction that believes in selflessness.
The part where I became wholly invested in this book was when it became apparent that Tris's time with Dauntless may be short and unsuccessful, and as you watch her struggle to fight from the bottom to belong somewhere she feels she is meant to be, you actually start to feel a little more a part of the book yourself, which parallels the growing intensity of the plot, the relationship between Tris and one of her leaders, and the oncoming civil "but not really" war between the factions.
You may want to call it another Hunger Games, another sappy romance masked as a heroical war novel, but there are qualities in this book that are winning of attention and appreciation, and while I didn't particularly find Roth's writing spectacular, she could tell a good story and I can appreciate the ability to pull me into another world as much as I can a beautifully crafted sentence or character or paragraph. While I would've liked to have seen her work harder on the linguistics of the writing, the story itself is captivating and honest.
This, in fact, did occur, surprisingly in chapter 10, where I had left off wondering if I even wanted to finish. The book begins with a lot of description about the factions and how they are split up and what each one represents and what it means for Beatrice to turn 16 and decide her own fate: stay loyal to her family or branch out into a life of her own? I was not buying into this world very much until Beatrice "Tris" Prior begins training as a Dauntless, which is intense and grueling, because if you do not make the top ten, you are factionless, which means you are not supported by the government and rely mostly on the factioned people to sustain you, which doesn't come from many unless they are part of Abnegation, the faction where Tris grew up, and the faction that believes in selflessness.
The part where I became wholly invested in this book was when it became apparent that Tris's time with Dauntless may be short and unsuccessful, and as you watch her struggle to fight from the bottom to belong somewhere she feels she is meant to be, you actually start to feel a little more a part of the book yourself, which parallels the growing intensity of the plot, the relationship between Tris and one of her leaders, and the oncoming civil "but not really" war between the factions.
You may want to call it another Hunger Games, another sappy romance masked as a heroical war novel, but there are qualities in this book that are winning of attention and appreciation, and while I didn't particularly find Roth's writing spectacular, she could tell a good story and I can appreciate the ability to pull me into another world as much as I can a beautifully crafted sentence or character or paragraph. While I would've liked to have seen her work harder on the linguistics of the writing, the story itself is captivating and honest.