Thursday, March 15, 2012

Divergent by Veronica Roth Review

Divergent is a strange little book. It was hyped up for sure, but it wasn't abysmal like many hyped up books are. But I'm not saying it's the best either. 
I'm going to divide this into a Good and Bad list for my sanity. 

The Good 

-The world building is cool, but half-baked (I'll get to that in the bad section). The factions are interesting, and being a super nerd, the names fit perfectly. 
-Beatrice's evolution as a character is thoughtful and interesting (but also with it's problems). 
-All the plot twists actually MEANT something. 
-The initiation was interesting in the way that the Hunger Games was interesting (very twisted and wrong but undeniably interesting). 
-The tension builds up very nicely. 
-The plot twist at the end and the epic battle were super cool. I don't remember the last time I got an actual showdown in a book. I honestly just can't think of one in the last two years. 

The Bad 

-The world building has no scope. It makes it seem like the factions are really really small and close together, but also very far apart. It was really disorienting. 
-Disappearing and/or confusing Side Character Syndrome runs rampant in Divergent. There are hosts of random characters whom I could never keep track of and it became incredibly confusing towards the end of the book. Not good. 
-The whole "OHMYGOD FOUR IS SO FRIKKIN HOT I LIKE HIM A LOT" thing just kind of doesn't do anything for me at the start of the book. I like it better as it goes on, but in the beginning it's more than a little weird, considering Four may or may not be a brutal killer. 
-The pacing is SO LONG. I know a lot of stuff is bulit up to and the Initiation does have it's good bits but it goes on forever. I wish we had more time for the epic (view spoiler)
-Beatrice is really annoying sometimes. There are moments, however short they may be, but every so often, where she talks about how selfish she is. While everything she does might seem a little selfish after living in Abnegation, I still don't understand why you couldn't save whoever it was or stand up for whoever while you're moping. It's downright ridiculous. 
NOTE: I still enjoyed this book for what it was worth. 

No comments:

Post a Comment