I love this book getting ready to read insurgent. ( )

In a dystopian Chicago (where the Sears Tower is now known as The Hub) society has divided itself into five factions. Each faction values and lives by a specific quality or virtue. Beatrice, the 16-year-old main character, is a member of Abnegation - the selfless faction where they don't celebrate birthdays or even look at their own reflections in mirrors. Once a year, all the 16-year-olds take a test, in a virtual reality sort of way, to determine to which faction they are most suited: Abnegation - selflessness, Candor - honesty, Dauntless - bravery, Amity - peacefulness, and Erudite - intelligence. Then there is a Choosing Ceremony during witch the 16-year-olds choose a faction - with which they will spend the rest of their lives - they can take into account their aptitude test results, they can simply choose to stay with their parents in the faction they were born into, or they can choose another faction altogether. The worst thing they can do is become factionless - living alone, outside of society, and without community. Being Divergent - the title of the novel - is showing an aptitude for several factions at once. And it is something that must be kept secret. It is something this society sees as dangerous. Beatrice is faced with a difficult decision - will she choose to remain with her family in Abnegation or choose to leave them to live in another faction? The difficulty of her decision is compounded by the fact that her aptitude test results are inconclusive. She is Divergent.

I really enjoyed this novel. If you liked The Hunger Games, I think you'll probably like this novel as well. I don't want to give too much away, but I will say that the setting and characters are richly drawn, the storyline is intriguing and engaging, and the ending will make you want to run out and get the next installment, Insurgent. ( )

Not the best, not the worst. I don’t know what else to say about it to be honest. The films made Four seem less caring to me than how he is in the book but I’m putting that down to the fact I saw the film first. But glad I’ve finished a book on my tbr since 2019 ( )

This is the last dystopian series I'll be reviewing for a while before I return to this genre at some point in the future. The first book in the series isn't terrible, but it isn't great either. It's just... meh. The main thing keeping this book from being as bad as the next two is that this one takes place almost entirely in Dauntless Headquarters, so there isn't much room for awful world-building here. That comes later.

With that being said, this book still doesn't really make that much sense. This whole concept of people only having one personality and the Divergent having multiple is unfathomably dumb. That's because, even the non-Divergent characters in this book seem slightly more complex than having only one of five personality traits. They're decently written characters, but that's problem because, apparently, they're not supposed to be. They're supposed to be extremely one-dimensional. However, the only character I can think of who fits that mold is Jeanine.

The pacing isn't that great, either. This book is nearly 500 pages long, yet it doesn't really feel like much happens throughout. The characters pretty much just go through initiation, then, all of a sudden, we have the climax where the assault on Abnegation happens. Sure, some interesting stuff happens throughout those first 400 pages, but the story still feels really sluggish. I don't know. Besides some of the things that happened with Peter and Al, I didn't really give much of a shit.

Speaking of Al, he is easily the best character in this book. He is extremely well-written and complex. The fact that he's not Divergent just makes the entire concept of this story collapse in on itself. He has an extremely tragic story, and it adds a lot of spice to this otherwise kinda bland story.

Also, this might just be me, but I Veronica Roth's writing style felt very... odd in this book. I don't really know how to explain it. She made it difficult for me to visualize a lot of scenes because her writing wasn't always clear. Conflicting images constantly arise as I read this story because Roth doesn't describe the scenes very well. Her descriptive imagery isn't detailed enough for me to fully visualize what's actually happening. Maybe, it's just me. If anyone else felt like this when they read this the book, let me know.

So, yeah. I don't really have much else to say about this book. Overall, it's just kinda below average for me. ( )

Loved this book! Couldn't put it down!
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