Divergent - Does it live up to the hype?

Before I get into my review of the Veronica Roth book, Divergent, I want to take a second and apologize for the inconsistency in my posting schedule the past several weeks. Life has been a little crazy and gotten in the way, but I think things are going to be settling down soon so please bear with me as I find my feet again. And in case you were wondering, I will continue the series I started on the Greek gods next week.

On with today’s topic!

For several months now I have been hearing people talk about a new book series that is supposed to be the next Hunger Games. I kept putting it off because, well, I kind of already had a very large pile of books screaming out “Read me!” But enough people that I trust kept telling me I HAD to check this series out that I finally broke down and bought the book, placing it at the top of my book pile. Last week I was able to read it and I really enjoyed it.

Beatrice lives in a world that is ordered by five factions: Abnegation, Dauntless, Candor, Erudite, and Amity. Each faction has a unique philosophy that dictates the direction of their lives. Now that Beatrice is 16 years old, it is her turn to decide: will she stay in the faction where she was born – Abnegation – or choose a different one? During a test meant to help her decide where she belongs she finds out that she doesn’t fit with just one faction – she is Divergent.

There were a lot of things I really liked about this book. One of those was learning about the philosophies and rationales of the different factions. What I found so fascinating was that, at their core, the factions made sense. There was a logic within them that worked and really makes one think. Of course, by the time the story takes place most of those ideals have been warped beyond all recognition, but that added to the fascination for me as I tried to create the path of logic between the two points. Maybe I’m weird, I don’t know, but this was one of my favorite parts about the book.

Like The Hunger Games, this series is told from the 1st person perspective of a young female. I personally found Beatrice more likable than Katniss (if you read my reviews on that series you know about my love/hate relationship with her), but she was still wonderfully flawed. I loved getting to see the transformation that took place in her over the course of the book. The character we have at the end is completely different from the one at the beginning and the change is done so naturally that we don’t question it.

The only quibble I had with the book was the pacing. Once Beatrice chose her faction and began the process of initiation things kind of slowed down. I wasn’t sure what the actual conflict of the book was or who the *bad guy* was for a long time. There were plenty of small conflicts and minor bad guys, but I knew that none of those things were the main conflict of the book and series. All we really know is that Beatrice being Divergent is important and that it is somehow dangerous, but it takes a really long time to find out why. For me, this didn’t stop my enjoyment of the book because I was so interested in learning about the factions as I already mentioned, but I can see where someone else might have a more difficult time with this.

Bottom line, Divergent is a book worth checking out. I have already bought the second book, Insurgent, which came out not long ago and will get to it sometime in the upcoming weeks.

Have you read Divergent? What did you think of it? What were things things that you liked? Disliked? Let me know in the comments.

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