Book 4--Divergent by Veronica Roth

Oops it's been a few months.

I predicted correctly that I would drown in grad school work. I found time among the madness to pick up the latest YA dystopian craze--Divergent.

Context:

Beatrice Prior lives in the remains of Chicago in a society divided into five factions: Abnegation, Candor, Dauntless, Erudite, and Amity. Each faction represents a virtue which is theoretically the "most" valuable to successful government and life (for example, the selfless Abnegation are the leaders of the government). On her sixteenth birthday, Beatrice takes an aptitude test which is supposed to tell her to which faction she is best suited. But the test doesn't work on her--her instructor fearfully tells her that she is Divergent. Beatrice must decide then which faction to choose and conceal her Divergence. 

As always, spoilers ahead.

My thoughts:

I did not expect to love this book so much. In fact, I didn't realize how much I loved it until I finished the third book, Allegiant. It didn't grab me the same way The Hunger Games or Harry Potter did, but I still loved it. 

Beatrice is your typical rebellious, do-it-yourself teenage female protagonist, but I still liked her. Perhaps she is relatable because being Divergent is more of a "natural" state of being--none of us can truly say we know people who are always selfless, or always honest, for instance. At any rate, I like Beatrice's voice, and I enjoy her strange, faction-divided world. The aptitude test was fascinating to me; like a virtual reality personality test. Equal parts creepy and awesome. The Choosing Ceremony reminded me vaguely of The Giver, though I haven't read that book in a while so I can't place my finger on exactly why. 

Man, Tris joining Dauntless was just awesome. The whole train thing and jumping off a building thing...it's interesting to put yourself in that position and think, wow, what would I do in that situation? Would I rather become factionless or die? Hmmm. 

Initiation in general was just fascinating to me. Everything about the way the Dauntless live was interesting, actually. I liked the idea of the chasm, and I like their manifesto. Too bad your typical "gotta screw everything up now because I'm a bloodthirsty jackass" villain has to come along and muck it up. 

I like that Tris wasn't just naturally gifted or anything like that. I love Katniss, but she was apparently some kind of prodigy with a bow. Tris had to work her ass off. She had to claw her way into an initiation position. She was at the bottom of the pack, got her ass kicked several times, and continued to stand up and fight again. There was nothing special about Tris except that she left Abnegation for Dauntless; the one and only "Stiff" transfer. She beat out several Dauntless born initiates to earn her place in Dauntless. I think she's an admirable role model. 

I also love that romance isn't the focus of the book. Sure, she ends up falling in love with Four, but it's awkward and halting and very real. It's also not her primary focus. She's desperate to be a Dauntless initiate. That is her driving force. She doesn't derive her happiness or her identity from Four. I love that. 

I found the fear landscapes and the general use of serums interesting, too. It feels kind of Brave New World to me in the psychological manipulation sense. It doesn't seem too much of a reach that this could be very real in the future. Maybe not to the same degree as in Divergent, but wow, the serums (discussed here and in future books) are creepy and fascinating at the same time. 

I also like Peter. (pause for effect) I don't like him, per se, but more what he represents. Too few authors are willing to deal with "societally incorrect" mental illnesses. Everyone's all for tackling learning disabilities and autism and things like that, but most YA authors do not dare to touch things like psychopathy or sociopathy with a ten foot pole. And Peter is certainly a sociopath. He adds an interesting flavor to the mix of tributes, and especially as they books went on I enjoyed learning more about his character. 

The chasm kiss was hot. So there's that. I just love the way Tris and Four interact. They don't just sap all over each other. They're strong, and respect each other's strength. It's cute in a not-cute kind of way. If that makes any sense.

I like the way they toss bravery and selflessness up in the air. Tris is constantly battling with not feeling "selfless" enough for Abnegation, but starts to learn that there are some elements of selflessness in bravery--after all, the manifesto for Dauntless proclaims that standing up for someone and common acts of bravery are what they find admirable. These things inherently contain selflessness. I feel like this is the first "coming of age/who the hell am I" teenager story that I've read where you can actually see the protagonist growing and figuring out who she is. It's pretty cool, really. 

The whole ending was pretty cool. Tris's mom saving her, her dad saving her...ahh so many sad feels! I was a bit surprised by how quickly all this happened. I guess I expected a little more "Tris as a Dauntless" action before Shit Hit the Fan. 

I did have some complaints though. I did realize after reading the last two books that all my questions got answered, but holy hell I had so many questions at the end of this book. Which I guess is a good thing, to keep you wanting to read, but it really just left me feeling frustrated. Also, again I got the answer to this come book 3, but who thought strict separation was a truly great ideal of how humans should form their culture and society? Honestly! Yeah, let's force everyone to wear ONE color to represent the ONE ideal they all hold. Okie dokie then. 

Uggghh Jeanine Mathews. Such an annoying, smug character. I just feel like no one really gets it, you know? Everyone thinks they just know how their society should be run, and they're all stupid and wrong. You would think someone so intelligent would realize how incredibly inhuman she's being. But I guess not.

I also wish we got more "why and how" did all this stuff happen. Some of it gets answered in Allegiant, but I still have questions, dammit.

My last gripe is that there seems to be some critical research missing. Like, Roth never really seems to understand guns. She just is like oh here's a gun and Tris put some bullets in it. Okay, what kind of gun? Because a military grade weapon (like it is implied they have) would have a magazine. Not a bullet chamber. Come onnnnnnnnn.

My Rating:

I give Divergent a 4/5

Great, gripping story with well done (if not familiar) characters. Fresh take on dystopian society, though laden with some critical research errors, annoying questions, and stereotypical YA dystopian tropes. Overall, I loved it, despite its imperfections.