Alejandro's Reviews > Divergent

A book with its ups and downs.


ROLLERCOASTER OR FERRIS WHEEL?

Politeness is deception in pretty packaging.

This novel was a rollercoaster for me. Maybe it should be a ferris wheel (pun intended) but no, it was a rollercoaster since at some moments I was quite high, real excited about the story, but at some moments I was way down, getting into my nerves.

It wasn't easy to rate the book, since I liked the general story in the novel, but I really liked several unexpected twists in key moments of it.

So, it was hard to reflect my overall reading experience in 3 or 4 stars. At the end I chose 3 stars weighting more the general experience over particular surprises. (It was of those times where having the option of giving a half star could be real helpful to be more accurate in my general rating).


DIFFERENT DYSTOPIAN HERO(INE)

It's easy to be brave when they're not my fears.

It was kinda different dystopian story since usually, the hero(ine) finds inside of the strange (for us) society and something unexpected happens and the hero(ine) realizes that how the society is working is wrong and he/she takes a rebellious position against the system.

However, in Divergent, the heroine, Tris is working hard to fit in the system, of course, she has some doubts here and then, but in general, she is playing along with the dystopian society and its rules.

She doesn't think that the dystopian society is wrong. She knows the rules, she accepts them, and she worked hard to make her own future into this society.

In here, the system itself will fall apart without a participation of the heroine.

Tris will only have to react to a "failure" of the dystopian society and trying to survive, but the "failure" is unrelated to her and she isn't the one who incites it.


A DOOMED SYSTEM IN ITS ROOTS

It must require bravery to be honest all the time.

I didn't surprise myself that this dystopian society could starting to fall apart by itself.

I mean, the very system is odd. (To say it in a mild way)

At least, the way that people reacts to the base of the system.

You have 5 factions, each faction with very distinct features, but when you get to be 16 years old, you have to choose a faction, the one where you already are or another one, even you have to take a test that giving you the results to know if your personality is more "tuned" to the characteristics of other faction.

So far, sounds nice.

BUT, if you choose a different faction to the one where you grew up...

...ZAP! CRASH! KAPOW!...

...you're considered a traitor to your original faction and it's very likely that your family won't seeing you anymore.

Ah?! What the heck just happened?

If changing of faction is something SO terrible, why the heck they force you to take a dang test and choosing?

Also, you will find out, in the story, how few characters born in their current factions, so, if they also chose a different faction, why the heck are they so mad when their sons do just the same dang thing? Geez!!!

Oooh! And if you fail to enter into your new faction, you ended to be "factionless"...

...Why even there are "factionless" people?!!!

There is enough hate between official factions, and are they engrossing AND feeding a faction (only without a cool name) that they have even more valid reasons to hate to the rest of whole bunch of the five official factions?

No wonder why this dystopia doesn't really need Tris (or any other hero(ine)) to fight against the system, since the very conception of it was doomed to fail for itself, sooner or later.


THOSE DANG MOVING TRAINS

A chasm reminds us that there is a fine line between bravery and idiocy.

It's funny how being "divergent" seems to be something unusual in that dystopian society but you will meet more people than you would expect that they are like that, so how strange really is?

Also, I don't like when the story shows the advantage of being like that and the very book that you are barely enjoying that, ZAP! KAPOW! TOMA GUACHO! something came up to nullify that. (No, I won't spoil what is).

But geez! It's like... "Hey! I'm Superman!" ... "Oh, really? Sorry chump, I have Kryptonite." ... All the fun of being Superman going to the sewers.

I would accept that some weakness to the "Divergent" state would be developed but, was it too much to wait until the second book at least?

What I really like was that you can't foreseen how the relationships between the characters will be. At some moments, you will like a lot some characters and later you will hate them or feeling sorry for them, or just the opposite way too. Indeed it was of the strongest points in the narrative.

I would like to meet the "good old times" of the Dauntless faction when "teamwork and risking your life for a higher purpose" were priorities and not this bunch of train-jumpin' psychos that they are now...

...Did they really think that bravery is shown only for being so stupid of jumping from and into moving trains?!!!

"Thanks, Mom and Dad for sacrificing so much for me during 16 years only for me getting my brains spread out in the pavement while trying to jump into a freaking moving train!"

Are there even some train station in that city?!

Honestly, it seems that those dang train never stop at any moment!

Due stupid actions like those and others such, "safe mode" isn't activated in this novel, so you will find blood here and there, showing once and a while, some pointless deaths.

Amity and Candor factions are nothing but a bunch of wimps and cowards.

I wonder how smart really are Erudite faction if they came up with such society system doomed to fail.

And finally, Abnegation faction isn't any real better, I mean, they are soooooooo selfless that they will give their seats to you in a bus, BUT driving that bus is something beneath them, something to do for those poor souls of the "factionless".

Also, Abnegation people can put in order a hall after a high profile event, BUT working as full-time janitors is deserved for the "factionless".

This is not a society, but a freaking ticking bomb!