Rating (Out of 5): ~4
Publisher: HarperCollins (Katherine Tegen Books)
Spoilers?: Very, purposely, Minor
Goodreads Synopsis:
In a future
Chicago, 16-year-old Beatrice Prior must choose among five predetermined
factions to define her identity for the rest of her life, a decision
made more difficult when she discovers that she is an anomaly who does
not fit into any one group, and that the society she lives in is not
perfect after all.
Review:
I was really surprised by this book.
I was expecting to like it; because of all
of the good reviews that I read, mostly (I would also say because of the good
reactions of the people in my book club, but they were also big fans of The
City of Bones, and I wasn’t, so…). I just wasn’t expecting to like it as much
as I did, or to be as impressed with it as I was. Because I really was.
My edition of the book had almost no description (less than the one up above), and so I had no idea what I was going into; which, I guess, gave me a lot of room to be impressed. Anyway, Divergent is about Beatrice, later known as Tris, who
lives in a dystopian time. Where she lives, there are five factions, and when
you turn 16, you take a test and then get to choose which one you want to go
into. Usually, when you take the test, you get the faction that you are best
suited for, and a lot of the time, it’s the one that you were born into. But
then there are people who don’t get one result, who have a little bit of
everything inside them, and they are the divergent. They’re stronger, and the
faction leaders don’t like them. I’m not going to go too into the different factions,
because, you know, go read the book for that (no, really, go read the book). And
so, of course, Tris ends up being divergent, and choosing the more violent
faction. I wasn't sure which faction she was going to choose, and was actually kind of hoping she would choose the one that her brother chose (I won't name them, though, because I don't want to give too much away!), but it makes sense for her to have chosen the one she did.
I liked how the factions worked, what with
getting to choose the one you want, and how they all have their own rules and
ways of doing things, but they are all in the same area; they aren’t not
allowed to see each other or anything, as they’re all in the same town. Some
might not like others, but they still have to be around each other.
Okay, so Tris is awesome. I kind of love
her. At first, I didn’t really feel much for her; I was thinking she might just
be another faceless character that I am in the head of, as I tend to think of
other main characters, but when I realized that I wasn’t paying too much
attention to her, I think I started to try harder, and so I did. She was
strong, and smart, and protective, and conflicted. She is badass, guys. She
takes charge when she needs to, she knows not to reveal too much about herself,
she’s worried about her family and Four, and she’s just generally awesome. (As
a sidenote, one thing that did bother me was that I thought one of her fears,
during at least one of the simulations, would be someone finding out that she
was divergent. But it wasn’t. I really want to know if there’s a reason behind
that, aside from the fact that other people weren’t supposed to find out so
early on.)
Her parents were pretty awesome. Her mom, in
particular. Her dad was alright, but got a little better at the end. I’m hoping
to get to know her brother more in the next one. Next, her friends. Uriah and
the faction-born-initiates were pretty cool, and seemed to genuinely like her,
whereas the transfer-initiates kind of sucked. Will, for the most part, seemed
alright. But all of them turned their backs on her really easily, and only
seemed to like her when she was weak, which was completely jerk-ish of them. (Like,
in the next volume, when Christina finds out about Will, I doubt she’s going to
forgive Tris.)
I kind of love Four. He’s tough, and strong,
and smart, but he’s also so sweet, and vulnerable, and I want to hug him and
kiss him and make it all better, but he doesn’t really need it (maybe he would
accept it from Tris, though). I am really looking forward to Tris getting
closer to him in the next book. The romance between them was really good, and
went at a really good pace; their personalities, I think, go together really
well. Also, they are both inexperienced, but their falling for each other wasn’t
done in an immature way, it seemed more innocent and sweet, which was
definitely nice.
The pace of the book was actually really
good. A lot of the time I’m wary of bigger books, just for the fact that they
can drag on really easily, but this one went along really well, and I found
that I didn’t want to stop reading it, quite a few times (as in, I would want
to go do something else, and maybe I would, but once I picked the book back up,
I kept going “Just one more chapter… Oh, one more, than I will go do (insert
activity here)…” and then I would be several more chapters into it, because I
could not help myself). It started out with her with her parents, and then a
lot of the book was spent with her competing during her initiation into the
faction she chose, which took a lot of time but was still really exciting
(there was always something going on!), and then, when there was about a
quarter of the book left, bam!, something big happened that took up the rest of
the book. I was expecting it to happen, but I wasn’t expecting it to occur so
soon. I figured it would take more time, but no, it came rather fast.
And it was exciting. I could not put it down
when it happened, and I really enjoyed that part of the book (I enjoyed all of
it, but still). I kind of hate the faction leaders that were in charge of it,
and I’m looking forward to finding out what happens next, to seeing what Tris
and Four and her brother and everyone is doing. I’m thinking that Marcus is up
to something, and I hate Peter, and hope that Tris does something about him
soon. Again, I love how tough Tris is. She isn’t weak or afraid to hurt someone
if it’s necessary to do so, which is awesome.
She’s just so awesome, and I’m so impressed.
I should be reading the next book soon, since I’ll be getting it within the
next week, I think. I am a bit upset that, once I finish the next one, I will
have to wait about a year for the third one, but that’s alright.
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