Title: Divergent
Author: Veronica Roth
Publisher: Katherine Tegan Books
Year: 2011
Genre: YA Dystopian
I enjoyed this book, although the ending didn’t feel like much of an ending–which makes sense, since there is a sequel. Interesting world idea, and Ms. Roth takes the idea of factions to the nth degree, showing how a society out of balance is a dangerous thing. I think this book is quite relevant to today’s times, in particular our political arena. Society has broken down, and different groups of people have decided on qualities they think will root out evil, including courage, selflessness, honesty, and intellect. The only problem, is they’ve gone a little overboard, and now put down the other factions and qualities. Sound familiar? (Family values! Freedom of expression! America first! New World Order!) This factionization eventually leads to the complete breakdown of society; what was a fairly well working machine becomes chaos. This is already a dystopian world, but here it falls again in another cycle.
Veronica’s characters are okay, though I find her protagonist a bit whiny at times. The little romance is nicely done as well. I really liked how tension was maintained throughout the book and the intricacies of the society and their training process. I recommended the book to my twelve-year-old daughter, and she really enjoyed the book as well. Those who liked “The Hunger Games” will find this right up their alley.
Great review. I enjoyed the book as well and have read the sequel, which I believe I liked even better. Personally, I like this protagonist more than Katniss of Hunger Games because she is not constantly hiding and wanting to run. She often times decides that the easy way is not always the right way and doing what is right can make you a lot of enemies.
I’ll be honest–I saw the movie for Hunger Games but haven’t read the book. Is it worth it?
I actually enjoyed the book more, I felt more connected to the characters and understood more of what drove them to act the way they did. That being said, I think that the character of Katniss lost what made her special through most of the third book and I did not like the ending of the third book, it was like the author slammed on the brakes and just decided to quit.