Divergent

The story and the fast pace of the writing kept me into this book. I wanted to know what happened in the end. 

I am torn when it comes to the characters. While I say I didn't love the characters, I didn't dislike them, either. The teenage drama is something that does not appeal to me, though I do like when characters have internal struggles and grow from them. There is some of this here. I imagine that Tris' growth will happen across the trilogy and not solely in one book. 

I liked the story, but I haven't decided yet whether to read the next book. I think what goes cross grain for me in this book is that everyone is a threat to the main character throughout most of the book. I find this kind of fear uncomfortable. 

I am a bit burned out on Teenager In Dystopia novels, but this was still pretty fun! There were a few points that threw me out of the story where all of the ‘rules' of this society were ignored to move plot points along.

Potential Spoiler
Throughout the beginning of the book it was stressed that Factions come before Blood (family) and there was no mingling. It was also stressed that the Transfers could only see their family once on the visiting day and there are no stories of anyone visiting another Faction- even if becoming Factionless. Yet, Tris just walks into the other faction, visits her brother, and heads home and there are no Faction related consequences- just related to running into the Bad Guys.

Frustrating, but not enough to ruin the enjoyment of the book. I liked the idea of trying to live up to ideals and really liked the character of Tris. Very different than the other novels where the girls start passive and learn to be more assertive.

Planning to read the next in the series soon!

I knew little about this series before I picked up the audiobook for it (b/c it was on sale.) The reader of the first person perspective was adequate in providing the voice of the main character Tris. I'm not in the YA demographic (a few decades since I was there) so the teen romance felt silly and unnecessary. I did find the story-world and how they've reconfigured society to be thought-provoking. As this first book sets the scene and the characters, I'm hopeful that the second (which has the same narrator) will have more world building and socio-political intregue - and less teen romance. I will have to wait and listen to see how this plays out.

Wow. I love that sometimes reading a particular book lines up with the lessons you are facing in life at that very moment. Reading Divergent right now was exactly that for me.

Interesting ideas explored in this book. I believe the biggest lessons to be learned are: Bad comes from devaluing those who don't value the same things you value. Freedom to be who you are at the core is vital to survival and happiness. Precious time and resources are wasted when looking for what's wrong/different about others, instead of celebrating and appreciating what others have to offer.

The book doesn't make any sense at all as a cautionary tale (i.e. it's pretty unlikely that anyone will decide to divide society based on personalities), but if you instead read it as an allegory about growing up, things start to make a lot more sense. Tris grows up in a meek and selfless household with loving parents, but the restrictions chafe. She is given the chance to choose a different life with one of the other factions, but to do so would mean publicly rejecting her parents' way of life. Sound familiar to anyone?

It sounded familiar to me, and so I loved it.

Pros: interesting dystopian world, sympathetic protagonist/

Cons: gaps in the worldbuilding that experienced readers will pick up on but others probably won't care about, ending doesn't hold up to the book's internal logic/

In a city where kids are raised in one of 5 factions (Abnegation, Candor, Amity, Erudite and Dauntless) nothing is more scary than being factionless. Beatrice and her brother are both at the age when youths get to choose their factions. They can either stay in Abnegation, or move to one of the other factions. Whatever they choose, there's no going back. Beatrice wants to be in Dauntless, the faction of the brave, but is she brave enough to turn her back on her family and try something different?

The novel has a unique divisionary structure. After a war the people decided to separate into the group best suited to their personality, which is opposite the trait that group felt caused the war. The warning being that anything taken to extremes is bad.

The dystopian world is fairly well fleshed out, but more discerning readers will find strange gaps in the worldbuilding. For example, the Erudite want more cars and luxury items and Beatrice is surprisingly wasteful when it comes to clothing (throwing out pants because of blood stains). Yet, when Ms. Roth described what jobs each faction performs, no one's said to be in manufacture. Amity grows food, Dauntless police, Abnegation does road repairs and charity word, Erudite are all teachers and researchers and Candor's full of lawyers. It also seems strange that they would need so many lawyers when there appears to be no justice system. When one of Beatrice's fellow initiates seriously injures another, no one steps in to find out what happened.

Beatrice is an interesting protagonist who has to make difficult decisions and learns that the world isn't a very nice place. The author does a great job of letting the reader experience everything Beatrice goes through.

Readers who like romance will enjoy Beatrice and her beau's attempts at coming to terms with who and where they are in life.

I found the ending very problematic, with events not holding up to the book's internal logic.

I try to stay up to date on the hot Young Adult fiction. My kids either have or will want to read a lot of these, and so I try to make sure I am familiar with them. Some I really enjoy (Rick Riordan's work for example), some have a lot of promise then fizzle out (I'm looking at you Hunger Games series). So with Divergent being the new hotness in our home (we had a countdown for the movie running) I decided to give it a go.

Well, sadly I couldn't make it. Kindle tells me I made it 83% of the way through it but that was when I called it quits.

Future dystopian fiction has the difficult challenge of walking that line between telling you too much about the world or not enough. I just never felt that I knew enough about this world and what led to the world as it is. As such, I never felt interested I the world. The characters were just a bit too cliche for me as well. The main character, Tris, never was someone I cared about. And I found myself caring even less about Four, her dreamy love interest. Finally, it was becoming too teen angsty for me. The development of the relationship between Four and Tris never felt real. It was obvious that they were going to end up in a relationship, but I never saw any real reason for that to happen. There was just no believable development to the relationship.

I ended up reading the synopses on Wikipedia and think I mad the right choice in stopping when I did.

This book was magnificent. I read it in the spam of two days and it let me thinking about it forever!Starting with the plot, I though it was very interesting. Even though it was yet another dystopia, it had a very distinctive feel. I was thrilled with the idea of getting divided by your behavior and your likes and your way of thinking. And how depending on the faction, you had strict rules that conditioned you to be and think the way your faction wants. And how you can choose about what faction you feel like you belong the best (even though there's kind of a tabu about that). Also, all the theme about the serum that shows you your greatest and worst first that you probably didn't even knew you had. And the technology in general was very interesting.Then there's the character. At this point, I though Tris was a great MC. I mean, she was the typical skinny, small, no-big-deal, not-so-pretty girl, but she actually got stronger. And she trained for it. She had this determination that was incredible. She actually got up and said “I'm not going to be one of those MC, I'll actually do things for myself”. She kicks ass. And I though that was awesome. And Tobias, well, do I even need to say something? I'm in love this Tobias. He's strong, handsome, sweet and kind of funny. And how he behaves with Tris is just lovely. I never really liked much Christina, but she was a pretty awesome character as well. The “bad ones” were very well done, because I actually did hate them and when that happens it means the author did a good job.About the world building, I don't think at times it actually made sense, and I sometimes had to reread some describing about it because I didn't exactly finished to understand, but I think I did a pretty good job in imagining it, because she lives a lot to your imagination.The only bad thing, is that I pretty much guessed what the major plot and twist was going to be. It was way to obvious to me, but it still surprised me how it was carried. It was very original.I got an obsession with this book since the moment I laid eyes on the first page. I couldn't put it down and much less stop reading, and there was never a time where I got bored.The writing was good, nothing too special. But there were times where she said this really cool things in such a beautiful way. But it was just some specific moments, the rest was normal.I was very excited to read this book, reason why I got very impatient and read the second one right away. And then, after finishing the series, I read the books all over again to see if I could catch any other thing I might have missed. And I must say, from all the books, this is y favorite.Divergent is a fast paced book that will trap you from the beginning, and you won't put it down, neither would you want to. With great characters and action packed scenes, [a:Veronica Roth 4039811 Veronica Roth https://d.gr-assets.com/authors/1363910238p2/4039811.jpg] did a great job writing Divergent.If you want to read my review of Insurgent If you want to read my review of AllegiantIf you want to read my review of The TransferIf you want to read my review of Free Four

Picked this up to distract myself and succeeded. Read it cover to cover in one sitting.

If I were rating this on pure enjoyment, this would have been a 4/4.5. It kept me turning pages and kept me engaged. That being said, as dystopian fiction/science-fiction, it doesn't bring many new ideas to the table - a little bit Hunger Games (the government is trying to control you by dividing you) meets Harry Potter (you're special & different, but didn't know until now). There are opportunities to explore deeper ideas that are missed (or saved for future books). People who are completely unfamiliar with a certain way of life are trained in a matter of weeks.

Still, it's a good read, and as long as you aren't looking for the deeper things that drive books like Ender's Game, or the Hunger Games, you should enjoy this just fine. Can't help but root for the heroine.

As someone that isn't really into the whole dystopian craze, I actually really enjoyed Divergent. The plot was the epitome of a young adult/dystopian novel where a ‘normal' girl lives in a world with a totalitarian government that figures out she is actually an outcast, falls in love with a similarly out of place boy and they save the day. Despite the typical plot and chain of events, Divergent was very engaging; I found myself losing track of time and reading until 5am. I understand why people love this book and Veronica Roth, without a doubt, deserves all the praise she's been receiving. Definitely one of the better dystopian type novels I've read!

4.5 stars. :)
Very, very good!

Jeg hadde høye, høye, HØYE forventninger til denne boka. Jeg mener, alle vennene mine på goodreads har gitt den fem stjerner og har skrevet sååå mye bra om denne boka. Selv om jeg syntes den var kjempebra, så nådde den ikke helt opp på toppen hos meg.
For det første vil jeg si at denne verdenen som Roth har laget er amazing! Fem “avdelinger” i byen som står for forskjellige ting – genialt og originalt! Jeg tror jeg ville valgt Erudite (om ikke de bare hadde vært for intelligens, og ikke det andre som vi lærer om i boka) eller Amity. Dauntless høres skummelt ut, og Candor og Abnegation for ekstremt.
For det andre, Tris var en utrolig god hovedkarakter! Hun var ikke perfekt og ikke likt av alle, hun måtte jobbe hardt for å oppnå resultater og var ikke overlegen. Og hun var veldig godt utviklet! Samme med Four, og egentlig alle de andre også!
Og for det tredje: slutten! Now that's how you write an ending! Veeeldig bra!
Så den anbefales veldig!

I obtained this ARC copy at the library conference a few weeks back and set it aside for future reading. I was astonished to see it all over the blogosphere during the Easter giveaways offered. I felt compelled to give it a read, so I took it along as a possible choice during the testing monitoring I was asked to do last week.



And the result? I could not put it down. It's quite as compelling as Hunger Games. (And, the whole-truth-and-nothing-but-the-truth? Our main character is quite like the main character of the Hunger Games. And her love interest is quite like the love interest of the Hunger Games. And the violence is quite like the violence of the Hunger Games....See where I'm going here?)



Not for the elementary set, certainly, but I can see this as a popular read among—no surprise here—Hunger Games fans.

Finally finished this book. (I was hooked, but my 6 month old kept my reading at a crawl for a while in the middle). I got sucked right in and though this book had the slight unfinished feeling first books sometimes have, that also makes me eager for the next installment. It was a really interesting take on a dystopian society and I look forward to finding out more about the world in the next book.

OK so obv this is on a lot of Hunger Games readalikes lists, and upon finishing this I had the same kind of feelings as I did after finishing Hunger Games: “Wait, did I just finish that book? Was it even good? I have no idea, I just had to consume it as fast as possible.”

Definitely a page-turner–super compelling. I didn't love it as much as I loved Hunger Games. Perhaps HG felt more radical to me, in the political sense, which I like. (But not everyone read HG the same way as me.) Uh, what now? It was very exciting, very intense, but now that I'm sitting back and breathing and thinking about it I think perhaps the characters didn't grab me as much as the plot did? And I like character-driven books. Oh I don't know. I'll definitely still read Insurgent. As soon as my hold on it comes in.

—

re-read 2019; was interesting to revisit after knowing all the twists revealed throughout the trilogy. I am very curious about how much plotting Roth did for the trilogy as a whole? Maybe not much?

http://www.frowl.org/worstbestsellers/episode-132-divergent/

Audio Book

Have you ever read a book and had nothing to say? This is how I feel right now. I feel like I'm on Neutral. I had my reservations about Divergent. 2012 has given me too many bad books with LOTS of marketing backing it up. Way too much hype and so little was delivered. So, again, I had my reservations. There was another thing too but I won't go into that. To my surprise I actually enjoyed this read a lot.

This was just a story to me folks. It was nice. I didn't feel like there was anything overly special about it but that was ok because it felt like nice storytelling. It is not perfect storytelling but it was still nice.
The Goodreads synopsis is a pretty good one but basically we follow Tris as she trains and fights to become a Dauntless member. I personally couldn't help but root for her as she made her way up the ranks solely with determination and smarts. True, she has a special gift but that could only get her so far. I liked that the underdog was top dog by the end of the initiation process. Initially what attracted me to this book was that it was based in Chicago. It was awesome to know that at one point Tris was in Humboldt Park about three blocks away from my home. I loved listening to different parts of Chicago popping up in the book.

It seems that most people have a problem with some of the holes in this world. For example you will not be told why society deteriorated in the way that it did and why its members had to break apart into five different factions. You will not be told why you have to get an aptitude test if in the end you get to choose which faction you want to be in at age 16. There might be more that I'm missing but honestly these holes I speak of didn't bother me too much. I think it's because I felt like maybe it will be revealed in later books. Maybe because I understood that this was Tris' journey into another faction and living in her present reality didn't involve analyzing all the factions or their history because there was no reason to. She needed to focus on training and that is where the book's focus was, therefore so was I. For the most part I just went with the flow to see where it led and am glad that I did.

On to the next one.