DIVERGENT
Divergent is the next big thingBY MONICA CRAWFORD ON DECEMBER 19, 2013
Watch out Katniss, there is a new girl in the world of dystopian novels, and she is taking over. Beatrice Prior, who goes by Tris, is the main character in the new “Divergent” trilogy by Veronica Roth. In “Divergent,” the society is divided into five different factions: Abnegation, Dauntless, Erudite, Candor and Amity. Sixteen year olds take an aptitude test that will determine the faction that they fit the best in and then must choose whether they want to stay in the faction that they grew up in or transfer to a new one. Just like most dystopian novels, “Divergent” is full of rule-breaking, action, violence and excitement.
I’m not going to lie, I think that dystopian novels are a little overrated. Once the “Hunger Games” came out, every book in the young-adult section of Barnes and Noble had to do with some teenager living in a darker parallel of our current society. However, Roth has renewed my faith in dystopian novels with her book “Divergent.” From the moment I opened the book, every second of my free time was spent reading about Tris, her instructor Four and their adventures in the faction of their choice. The book may look a little long to the average reader, but each page is full of exciting and somewhat violent events that made me want to read every second of the day. Of course one of the aspects of the book that kept me up at night turning pages was the love story between Tris and a character that she meets in her faction. Just like in the “Hunger Games,” the love story is a nice break from the violence that takes place in the story. The love story in “Divergent” is a little easier to follow because it is not a complicated triangle in which the reader has to choose between Peeta and Gale. I loved everything about this book, from the love story to all of the action and adventure. If I had to make one complaint about “Divergent”, it would be that the book had about seventy pages of bonus material at the end. I was reading along at a climactic part of the book and turned the page to find that the book was over. One of my favorite parts of the extra material in the back of the book was the faction quiz. After taking this quiz, I found out that I was Divergent. My results said that I could be in Amity, Candor or Dauntless. The quiz was fun, but I would have rather the actual story take up those last seventy pages than the sneak peak into Scott’s next book, “Insurgent,” the question and answer session with the author and the different faction manifestos. Despite the misleading seventy pages at the end, I really enjoyed this book, which was so good that I skipped watching “Gossip Girl” to read. I would recommend it to anyone suffering from “Hunger Games” withdrawals. Also like the “Hunger Games” books, “Divergent” is being made into a movie which is supposed to be released in March of 2014. I just hope that the movie does the book justice. HTML Comment Box is loading comments...
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