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Wigs's Reviews > Divergent
Divergent (Divergent, #1)
by
What kind of ridiculous mess...
Oh man.
So I know I say this in dissenting opinion, as many on my friends list are partial to this book, but I could not stand it. So before I go off on my tirade, I must explain. You may be thinking to yourself why I gave it two stars and not one, if I’m complaining so much. Let me explain that two is pretty low on my scale. Two is “why did I buy this.” Or read this. Or whatever. One star is dramatic. One is “this should not have been written,” which I have given out as you may know. But no, I don’t believe that of Divergent. Roth has an interesting concept. It had potential. But it’s the execution of the idea that was just awful to me.
I felt like I could feel what the author was thinking. Regardless of whether or not this is true, this is what I felt the author was saying to me through my copy of Divergent (minorish, and a few obvious spoilers to follow, major spoiler hidden under cut, you’ve been warned):
Research? Lol who needs to do that to write a book? No I know how to write a book, okay. I’ve read other books so I know.
You know what was a good book? The Hunger Games. I liked Mockingjay as well, so I think I’m going to put them together and write a book just like that. Yea. Okay. Small petite girl, check. Dystopia, check. Living in an underground compound, check. Lessons about bravery and self-sacrifice, check. Small girl trains with other people who are jealous of her success, check. Kills people, check. (view spoiler) Good. I’ve got all the elements of a good book. I’ve even ended the last chapter with a train. Both The Hunger Games and Harry Potter did that. I’m going to be a YA legend.
What’s cool? Jumping on a moving train. What else is cool? Jumping off a roof. Oh yea that sounds cool. I’ve seen that in a movie. Yea. What’s even cooler than that? ZIPLINING. I gotta think of more cool things, hold on. Gimme a second and I’ll come up with another.
Omg this book took me a WHOLE month to write. That’s like an eternity. Okay publishing time.
I’ve read that she did write it in a month. Whether it’s true or not, I'd certainly believe it in a heartbeat. The whole thing is rushed and just…completely nonsensical and full of trope after trope. It seemed to me that there was little effort put into analyzing the world and zero research done for it, which is a reminder to any of us who are writers to always have a reason for something, and not just because it “sounds cool.” This book is a treasure trove of COOL PEOPLE tropes and activities. Which doesn’t seem to work on me as I really can’t stand that breed of thrill-seeking people who’d rather risk their life doing stupid shit instead of… you know, not. So what is supposed to be super awesomely cool people just, to me, looked like a band of idiots.
Before I break it down, let’s get one thing out of the way. Wigs, did you like anything about the book though? Yes. Yes I did. Let’s talk about what did work for me:
-Chapters 24 and 25. (lol, yes, out of the 39, I liked those two. She must have written those on a good night.) I feel like they kind of dropped all of the other outside nonsense and kind of focused on just human things. I think there’s a good writer in her, just not when she’s trying to be all dystopian and… cool.
-Al’s storyline. And while Tris’s initial responses to Al made me rage, the story arc of Al really did move me emotionally and in a way that I was proud of Roth for doing so. Like cathartically I’m glad I felt these things over it.
-Some of her little details were nice touches. I enjoyed this particular one where Four was under a blue spotlight in a dark hallway it she described how his eyes were black and shadowed while the rest of his face eerily lit (or something like that.) Just here and there were some bits of description I liked.
And since I can’t think of anything else, let’s just move on. I like how it didn’t take me forever to read, but big font and spacing isn’t really a pro that counts for this.
Jeez this is starting to turn into Divergent: The Review, a novel by Wigs. But oh well. You can stop at any time. But I can’t. Not yet. I have to get this out of my head.
So here’s what I have issues with. And hey, if in book 2 she fixes some of these issues and answers some of the questions, great. I don’t care. Because someone can tell me “oh but we learn about that in book 2!” all they want but that doesn’t change the fact that after book 1 I’m thinking to myself “well that was completely stupid.” If you can’t convince me from book 1 to keep going then we’ve got a problem, right?
So as you already probably know, this book is about this dystopian society that is divided up into five factions, based on personality traits, point being that you are assigned a career/lifestyle based on what you’re like. And that’s fine. I can believe that. I can believe that a dystopian society would force you into choosing a limited amount of careers based on what you excel in. My issue is that this society is completely dysfunctional. And I know that we’re supposed to be on the cusp of collapse and all, but there is a difference between dystopian and dysfunctional. A dystopian is scary for us, because ideally, it is supposed to be believable. We can believe The Hunger Games is possible because people would totally watch a reality show where people fight to the death. If you put that on tv right now, thousands, I’m sure, would watch it. In the case of Divergent, my issue is that this society is unbelievable. I’m not convinced that there was a way society could get to this point, because the details are so minimal and poorly thought out. Everything is very homogenized and simplified thusly into these factions and these careers (using the information given to us):
Abnegation (selfless people): healthcare, politics
Dauntless (brave people): guards, police
Erudite (knowledgeable people): research, reporting (and one would guess teaching?)
Amity (friendly people): farming
Candor (honest people): lawyers, and…?
Okay so seriously what does Candor even do? 1/5 of this society is lawyers? I don’t think so. I would have thought they would have at least done news/newspapers but we’re told that it comes from Erudite so I don’t even know. They seem pointless. Anything I can think of that might go with them is really better suited to Erudite.
And wait a minute. Healthcare is given to Abnegation? Wait really? Shouldn’t it be given to Erudite, since being in the medical field requires almost a decade of studying to learn how to do it? Or what, is it like homeopathic healthcare? How helpful.
You CANNOT tell me that one faction rules the government. There is NO WAY that when they set up the system people were like you know what's a good idea? Putting one group in all the power. That's ridiculous to say that something like that happens in Future America. There's no way they wouldn't have put together a system where there is representation from each faction within a council. (Isn't that what the American Revolution was all about? Lack of representation in government? I cannot see everyone saying 'fuck representation! let's all agree to give the government over to the selfless people'....and later being like OH WHOOPS we don't like this!) So the whole main plot of Divergent is based on something that's already broken my suspension of belief.
And what’s with everyone being white collar? And how blue collar jobs are for the factionless, which the author speaks of as if they’re on the same level as crazy homeless people. I sorely hope she doesn’t think that in real life. Tris speaks about them as if they’re pariahs. Construction workers, bus drivers, gasp, the horror. The villain wants to get rid of them. Oh yes. Oh yes. Get rid of your laborers, what villain who dreams of prosperity DOESN’T get rid of the laborers? Hahaha Roth you’re killing me.
Okay, we need to talk about the train for a second. What. Is with. The Train. Why doesn’t it ever stop? (except for that one time when they rode it to the end of the city.) Why is this train an asshole? Didn’t jump on on time? Oops, you failed. Now you’re homeless. Loser. Oops, you fell off and now you’re dead. Lol we don’t stop the train here, bitch. Learn to live. (For a city that hasn’t seen murders in years, why does nobody give a shit when someone dies falling off the train? If random death isn’t common, why isn’t it horrifying? Why is everyone like just ignore it guys, just ignore it.) If it’s a Dauntless only train, why the fuck doesn’t it actually stop at the Dauntless compound. Oh yea because the Dauntless are stupid and have to make things ~death-defying.~ And how is it that the train tracks are both on the ground in front of the glass building and seven stories up at the roof of the glass building? I guess there’s two sets of tracks even though it wasn’t spoken about like that? Or otherwise the steepest track change in the world, haha.
AND WHY DO THEY LIVE UNDERGROUND? WHY? They had perfectly good empty buildings to refurbish, and instead they spend however many millions of dollars digging a bigass hole in the middle of the city just so people can enjoy some nice sunlight-deprived living. OH NO IT’S JUST BECAUSE TRIS NEEDED TO JUMP OFF A ROOF INTO A BLACK HOLE. Yea okay now it all makes sense what a good idea I’m glad you came up with such a normal reason for an underground compound. Not like that they’re in hiding or privacy or anything sensical like that. Or maybe she just wanted to copy Mockingjay, that too, of course. I can’t forget that.
You know, all of this could have made sense if she just didn’t make it set in our world. She could have chosen, say, a Miyazaki type world where there’s a magical train that doesn’t stop, and a place where the people all live underground, and whatever. But no, this is freakin’ future Chicago. And guess what people. In the future, the trains stop for no bitch, so watch out.
Okay okay I could go on forever about all the stuff I hate but I’m just gonna harp on two more topics and call it quits.
1)Why are the Dauntless so ridiculous? One thinks that a dystopian society would care about their military. Especially considering that in this case, their entire city is surrounded by a guarded fence with barbed wire. Clearly protection is important to them. So whyyyyyyy are the Dauntless, the only source of soldiers, completely undisciplined jackasses? They party it up and dress up like punks from 70s London and ….train to fight MMA style for whatever reason (It’s COOL, Wigs, gosh) but why are they completely out of control? They all act like they’re 15. Let’s sneak out at night and go do shit wooooo! Why aren’t the initiates sent immediately to bootcamp style training, like an actual military. Instead we’re gonna capture the flag and you know, camp activities mixed in with boy-on-girl fist-fighting and knife throwing. And mental training which, while cool (there’s that magic word again), seems to serve no real life application aside from the ridiculous circumstances Roth cooks up. (view spoiler)
2) And how, HOW, HOW is everyone not Divergent? Why does Tris have special snowflake syndrome? We’re told that being divergent is basically having a mind which is suitable for multiple factions, not just one single faction. Which is dangerous etc whatever. And I can buy that, I can, that a dystopian society would want to suppress an individual which has too many skills or whatever butttttt… how is it that SO few people actually have multiple skills. Seeing as things like selflessness and kindness go hand in hand, wouldn’t people be divergent for Abnegation and Amity? And wouldn’t people who speak their mind and are smart, a common pairing, be divergent for Candor and Erudite? And what about the people who’s tests tell them that they belong in one faction, but are allowed to choose another?? Why is that allowed, since it encourages them to learn more skills? (which is discouraged!) If they’re good at their chosen faction, and not the one that they were intended, doesn’t that make them divergent? And if they want to discourage people having multiple functions, why the hell are people allowed to change factions at all? Because if you’re raised one way and then learn a whole new way, aren’t you, in fact, becoming divergent by straddling the two worlds? It’s not like suddenly people forget everything, Christina still has her Candor traits even though she’s in Dauntless. I just don’t understand what seems to be this fatal flaw in Roth’s design. And because of this, I see how sad the wasted potential is. Why ISN’T everyone secretly divergent? Wouldn’t that actually be making a statement on the nature of humans and how you can’t suppress them into single pieces and put them in a box? But no, no, Tris has a special brain. No one can get into her mind. Just like Bella Swan.
Speaking of which, with Tris, who is supposed to be divergent for Abnegation and Dauntless, I can barely find any selflessness traits outside of a what any regular person would do. I found her, in fact, written incredibly selfish, as teenagers are. It seemed that Roth didn’t realize (or did she?) what a jerk she was writing Tris to be (omg why are my friends so jealous of me??? Omg he’s so gross but lol someone likes me that’s so cool.) She also has to point out physical features to add to why she doesn't like people (greasy hair, crooked teeth, stretch marks, pudge....didn't you know that all bad people are also ugly? Duh.)
Ugh I’m sorry I’m going to stop talking, that is enough, Wigs. Basically it comes down to this. I didn’t buy 90% of the stuff I was being fed. Eye-rolling was induced many a time. The ending was just about every cliché from an action movie I could think of. (view spoiler)
I’m sorry. I’m sorry everybody, for being a grump. But I just can’t with this. I can’t. I can’t deal. A book without a solid platform of sense is just not for me.
by
What kind of ridiculous mess...
Oh man.
So I know I say this in dissenting opinion, as many on my friends list are partial to this book, but I could not stand it. So before I go off on my tirade, I must explain. You may be thinking to yourself why I gave it two stars and not one, if I’m complaining so much. Let me explain that two is pretty low on my scale. Two is “why did I buy this.” Or read this. Or whatever. One star is dramatic. One is “this should not have been written,” which I have given out as you may know. But no, I don’t believe that of Divergent. Roth has an interesting concept. It had potential. But it’s the execution of the idea that was just awful to me.
I felt like I could feel what the author was thinking. Regardless of whether or not this is true, this is what I felt the author was saying to me through my copy of Divergent (minorish, and a few obvious spoilers to follow, major spoiler hidden under cut, you’ve been warned):
Research? Lol who needs to do that to write a book? No I know how to write a book, okay. I’ve read other books so I know.
You know what was a good book? The Hunger Games. I liked Mockingjay as well, so I think I’m going to put them together and write a book just like that. Yea. Okay. Small petite girl, check. Dystopia, check. Living in an underground compound, check. Lessons about bravery and self-sacrifice, check. Small girl trains with other people who are jealous of her success, check. Kills people, check. (view spoiler) Good. I’ve got all the elements of a good book. I’ve even ended the last chapter with a train. Both The Hunger Games and Harry Potter did that. I’m going to be a YA legend.
What’s cool? Jumping on a moving train. What else is cool? Jumping off a roof. Oh yea that sounds cool. I’ve seen that in a movie. Yea. What’s even cooler than that? ZIPLINING. I gotta think of more cool things, hold on. Gimme a second and I’ll come up with another.
Omg this book took me a WHOLE month to write. That’s like an eternity. Okay publishing time.
I’ve read that she did write it in a month. Whether it’s true or not, I'd certainly believe it in a heartbeat. The whole thing is rushed and just…completely nonsensical and full of trope after trope. It seemed to me that there was little effort put into analyzing the world and zero research done for it, which is a reminder to any of us who are writers to always have a reason for something, and not just because it “sounds cool.” This book is a treasure trove of COOL PEOPLE tropes and activities. Which doesn’t seem to work on me as I really can’t stand that breed of thrill-seeking people who’d rather risk their life doing stupid shit instead of… you know, not. So what is supposed to be super awesomely cool people just, to me, looked like a band of idiots.
Before I break it down, let’s get one thing out of the way. Wigs, did you like anything about the book though? Yes. Yes I did. Let’s talk about what did work for me:
-Chapters 24 and 25. (lol, yes, out of the 39, I liked those two. She must have written those on a good night.) I feel like they kind of dropped all of the other outside nonsense and kind of focused on just human things. I think there’s a good writer in her, just not when she’s trying to be all dystopian and… cool.
-Al’s storyline. And while Tris’s initial responses to Al made me rage, the story arc of Al really did move me emotionally and in a way that I was proud of Roth for doing so. Like cathartically I’m glad I felt these things over it.
-Some of her little details were nice touches. I enjoyed this particular one where Four was under a blue spotlight in a dark hallway it she described how his eyes were black and shadowed while the rest of his face eerily lit (or something like that.) Just here and there were some bits of description I liked.
And since I can’t think of anything else, let’s just move on. I like how it didn’t take me forever to read, but big font and spacing isn’t really a pro that counts for this.
Jeez this is starting to turn into Divergent: The Review, a novel by Wigs. But oh well. You can stop at any time. But I can’t. Not yet. I have to get this out of my head.
So here’s what I have issues with. And hey, if in book 2 she fixes some of these issues and answers some of the questions, great. I don’t care. Because someone can tell me “oh but we learn about that in book 2!” all they want but that doesn’t change the fact that after book 1 I’m thinking to myself “well that was completely stupid.” If you can’t convince me from book 1 to keep going then we’ve got a problem, right?
So as you already probably know, this book is about this dystopian society that is divided up into five factions, based on personality traits, point being that you are assigned a career/lifestyle based on what you’re like. And that’s fine. I can believe that. I can believe that a dystopian society would force you into choosing a limited amount of careers based on what you excel in. My issue is that this society is completely dysfunctional. And I know that we’re supposed to be on the cusp of collapse and all, but there is a difference between dystopian and dysfunctional. A dystopian is scary for us, because ideally, it is supposed to be believable. We can believe The Hunger Games is possible because people would totally watch a reality show where people fight to the death. If you put that on tv right now, thousands, I’m sure, would watch it. In the case of Divergent, my issue is that this society is unbelievable. I’m not convinced that there was a way society could get to this point, because the details are so minimal and poorly thought out. Everything is very homogenized and simplified thusly into these factions and these careers (using the information given to us):
Abnegation (selfless people): healthcare, politics
Dauntless (brave people): guards, police
Erudite (knowledgeable people): research, reporting (and one would guess teaching?)
Amity (friendly people): farming
Candor (honest people): lawyers, and…?
Okay so seriously what does Candor even do? 1/5 of this society is lawyers? I don’t think so. I would have thought they would have at least done news/newspapers but we’re told that it comes from Erudite so I don’t even know. They seem pointless. Anything I can think of that might go with them is really better suited to Erudite.
And wait a minute. Healthcare is given to Abnegation? Wait really? Shouldn’t it be given to Erudite, since being in the medical field requires almost a decade of studying to learn how to do it? Or what, is it like homeopathic healthcare? How helpful.
You CANNOT tell me that one faction rules the government. There is NO WAY that when they set up the system people were like you know what's a good idea? Putting one group in all the power. That's ridiculous to say that something like that happens in Future America. There's no way they wouldn't have put together a system where there is representation from each faction within a council. (Isn't that what the American Revolution was all about? Lack of representation in government? I cannot see everyone saying 'fuck representation! let's all agree to give the government over to the selfless people'....and later being like OH WHOOPS we don't like this!) So the whole main plot of Divergent is based on something that's already broken my suspension of belief.
And what’s with everyone being white collar? And how blue collar jobs are for the factionless, which the author speaks of as if they’re on the same level as crazy homeless people. I sorely hope she doesn’t think that in real life. Tris speaks about them as if they’re pariahs. Construction workers, bus drivers, gasp, the horror. The villain wants to get rid of them. Oh yes. Oh yes. Get rid of your laborers, what villain who dreams of prosperity DOESN’T get rid of the laborers? Hahaha Roth you’re killing me.
Okay, we need to talk about the train for a second. What. Is with. The Train. Why doesn’t it ever stop? (except for that one time when they rode it to the end of the city.) Why is this train an asshole? Didn’t jump on on time? Oops, you failed. Now you’re homeless. Loser. Oops, you fell off and now you’re dead. Lol we don’t stop the train here, bitch. Learn to live. (For a city that hasn’t seen murders in years, why does nobody give a shit when someone dies falling off the train? If random death isn’t common, why isn’t it horrifying? Why is everyone like just ignore it guys, just ignore it.) If it’s a Dauntless only train, why the fuck doesn’t it actually stop at the Dauntless compound. Oh yea because the Dauntless are stupid and have to make things ~death-defying.~ And how is it that the train tracks are both on the ground in front of the glass building and seven stories up at the roof of the glass building? I guess there’s two sets of tracks even though it wasn’t spoken about like that? Or otherwise the steepest track change in the world, haha.
AND WHY DO THEY LIVE UNDERGROUND? WHY? They had perfectly good empty buildings to refurbish, and instead they spend however many millions of dollars digging a bigass hole in the middle of the city just so people can enjoy some nice sunlight-deprived living. OH NO IT’S JUST BECAUSE TRIS NEEDED TO JUMP OFF A ROOF INTO A BLACK HOLE. Yea okay now it all makes sense what a good idea I’m glad you came up with such a normal reason for an underground compound. Not like that they’re in hiding or privacy or anything sensical like that. Or maybe she just wanted to copy Mockingjay, that too, of course. I can’t forget that.
You know, all of this could have made sense if she just didn’t make it set in our world. She could have chosen, say, a Miyazaki type world where there’s a magical train that doesn’t stop, and a place where the people all live underground, and whatever. But no, this is freakin’ future Chicago. And guess what people. In the future, the trains stop for no bitch, so watch out.
Okay okay I could go on forever about all the stuff I hate but I’m just gonna harp on two more topics and call it quits.
1)Why are the Dauntless so ridiculous? One thinks that a dystopian society would care about their military. Especially considering that in this case, their entire city is surrounded by a guarded fence with barbed wire. Clearly protection is important to them. So whyyyyyyy are the Dauntless, the only source of soldiers, completely undisciplined jackasses? They party it up and dress up like punks from 70s London and ….train to fight MMA style for whatever reason (It’s COOL, Wigs, gosh) but why are they completely out of control? They all act like they’re 15. Let’s sneak out at night and go do shit wooooo! Why aren’t the initiates sent immediately to bootcamp style training, like an actual military. Instead we’re gonna capture the flag and you know, camp activities mixed in with boy-on-girl fist-fighting and knife throwing. And mental training which, while cool (there’s that magic word again), seems to serve no real life application aside from the ridiculous circumstances Roth cooks up. (view spoiler)
2) And how, HOW, HOW is everyone not Divergent? Why does Tris have special snowflake syndrome? We’re told that being divergent is basically having a mind which is suitable for multiple factions, not just one single faction. Which is dangerous etc whatever. And I can buy that, I can, that a dystopian society would want to suppress an individual which has too many skills or whatever butttttt… how is it that SO few people actually have multiple skills. Seeing as things like selflessness and kindness go hand in hand, wouldn’t people be divergent for Abnegation and Amity? And wouldn’t people who speak their mind and are smart, a common pairing, be divergent for Candor and Erudite? And what about the people who’s tests tell them that they belong in one faction, but are allowed to choose another?? Why is that allowed, since it encourages them to learn more skills? (which is discouraged!) If they’re good at their chosen faction, and not the one that they were intended, doesn’t that make them divergent? And if they want to discourage people having multiple functions, why the hell are people allowed to change factions at all? Because if you’re raised one way and then learn a whole new way, aren’t you, in fact, becoming divergent by straddling the two worlds? It’s not like suddenly people forget everything, Christina still has her Candor traits even though she’s in Dauntless. I just don’t understand what seems to be this fatal flaw in Roth’s design. And because of this, I see how sad the wasted potential is. Why ISN’T everyone secretly divergent? Wouldn’t that actually be making a statement on the nature of humans and how you can’t suppress them into single pieces and put them in a box? But no, no, Tris has a special brain. No one can get into her mind. Just like Bella Swan.
Speaking of which, with Tris, who is supposed to be divergent for Abnegation and Dauntless, I can barely find any selflessness traits outside of a what any regular person would do. I found her, in fact, written incredibly selfish, as teenagers are. It seemed that Roth didn’t realize (or did she?) what a jerk she was writing Tris to be (omg why are my friends so jealous of me??? Omg he’s so gross but lol someone likes me that’s so cool.) She also has to point out physical features to add to why she doesn't like people (greasy hair, crooked teeth, stretch marks, pudge....didn't you know that all bad people are also ugly? Duh.)
Ugh I’m sorry I’m going to stop talking, that is enough, Wigs. Basically it comes down to this. I didn’t buy 90% of the stuff I was being fed. Eye-rolling was induced many a time. The ending was just about every cliché from an action movie I could think of. (view spoiler)
I’m sorry. I’m sorry everybody, for being a grump. But I just can’t with this. I can’t. I can’t deal. A book without a solid platform of sense is just not for me.
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Reading Progress
December 3, 2011
– Shelved
September 26, 2012
–
Started Reading
September 26, 2012
–
10.88%
"Okay so every time I read the name Beatrice I say it in Steve Holt's voice, that time he yelled BEATRICE! at the Shakespeare rehearsal. Every. Single. Time. I can't help it.
"
page
53
"
September 27, 2012
–
16.22%
""Behind this door is the room where you will be sleeping for the next few weeks. You will notice that there are ten beds and only nine of you." Only nine of you will continue on in the hope of becoming America's Next Top Model.
Sorry I'm having real problems taking this book seriously rn. There's so much..."okay, but why? No, seriously, why.""
page
79
Sorry I'm having real problems taking this book seriously rn. There's so much..."okay, but why? No, seriously, why.""
September 29, 2012
–
26.69%
"I'm pretty sure I know by now what side of the fence I'm on when it comes to this book.
Tris is really unlikeable to be quite honest. I don't care if her background makes her an unfeeling robot, I cannot relate to this kind of bland behavior."
page
130
Tris is really unlikeable to be quite honest. I don't care if her background makes her an unfeeling robot, I cannot relate to this kind of bland behavior."
September 29, 2012
–
46.61%
"I'm going to go ahead and finish this because I don't DNF but oh my god. This book... I genuinely want to know what people see in it because I feel like it's got nothing going for it. The narrator is shallow and petty, the world building is almost non-existent, the writing is subpar, the dialogue is close to terrible, and the situations are RIDICULOUS.
"
page
227
"
October 1, 2012
–
77.62%
"Okay for a brief moment, I actually did enjoy chaps 24 and 25. Maybe because it was more personal human things. Now we're back to the same old ridiculous stuff."
page
378
October 2, 2012
–
91.38%
"Wait, why does Jeanine want to get rid of the factionless? They're the blue collar workers! They construct buildings and drive buses and do city maintenance, wtf. This villain is supposed to be extremely smart, lol. Don't all megalomaniacal villains with dreams of prosperity love cheap labor? Veronica Roth, use your head for ONCE in this book, seriously, I implore you. You did zero research while writing this book."
page
445
October 3, 2012
–
Finished Reading
Comments Showing 1-50 of 530 (530 new)
message 1:
by
Marie
(new)
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rated it 2 stars
Sep 27, 2012 05:51AM
Ugh, this book :|
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Yea I know I know I've heard many polarizing opinions. But my bro bought me this book last christmas so I can't not read it, because then I'd feel like a jerk or something so I should read it. I'm buddy reading it right now with a friend to help like get it done, otherwise I wouldn't be reading it rn. It's ~alright so far but I don't think I'm going to be able to take it seriously.
To me it started off slowly and seemed pointless until near the end. The love story had potential but it fizzled, imo. Do you have the second book as well? That one was worse, to me.I recommended this to my co-worker since he seems into the dystopian YA, but he's not feeling this book and may not read the second since he's having a hard enough time with Divergent. He and I are now even, since he recommended that crap Maze Runner trilogy to me and I wasted a weekend reading that.
lol about your coworker, and no i haven't bought the second, even fans thought that was horrible
Marie wrote: "To me it started off slowly and seemed pointless until near the end. The love story had potential but it fizzled, imo. Do you have the second book as well? That one was worse, to me.I recommen..."
I WILL STAN FOR FOUR/TRIS UNTIL MY DYING BREATH. I WILL GO DOWN WITH THIS SHIP TBH
I really liked this book!
Yes.. the first book seemed quite pointless until I got into the second book. Believe it or not, A plot sort of develops!! Remember, we all ready 5 books of Harry Potter till we found out the plot of the series :)
I may have read this book using the torch light from my phone, under the bed covers, until 4 in the morning because it was amazing. And a good read in SO long. But that's just me.
Eddie wrote: "Yes.. the first book seemed quite pointless until I got into the second book. Believe it or not, A plot sort of develops!! Remember, we all ready 5 books of Harry Potter till we found out the pl..."Oh no you did not just compare this to Harry Potter! :P
seriouslyharry potter will not be touched in this sacred circle of my protection
Eddie wrote: "Yes.. the first book seemed quite pointless until I got into the second book. Believe it or not, A plot sort of develops!! Remember, we all ready 5 books of Harry Potter till we found out the pl..."I don't really agree that we didn't find out the plot of the series until the fifth book. But, regardless, the thing is, each individual book had a strong plot of its own.
So many of these series seem to have books with absolutely zero plot, to set up the series somehow (or the series has no real plot).
The second book is way better!
Great review (and yes, I read all of it).
Eddie wrote: "Yes.. the first book seemed quite pointless until I got into the second book. Believe it or not, A plot sort of develops!! Remember, we all ready 5 books of Harry Potter till we found out the pl..."HP is different tho. Each book had its own plot, it's not until the later books that you realize there's a much larger plot within the entire series. With Divergent, it's like you took Sorcerer's Stone and split that into three individual books (although even that would've been way better than what Divergent turned out to be).
Thank you Emma! XDAnd yes omg, Roxy. I wanted, at the beginning, the infamous 'test' to feel like the puzzles at the end of Sorcerer's Stone, I was hoping we'd get something like that. Strangely, the test was incredibly short, and I don't even know how people can be accurately tested when they're asked like three questions. Seriously that is probably the worst personality test I've seen. And...how did Tris do something so VASTLY different from everyone else. I mean really I don't think those choices were that hard to repeat by chance, lol.
Hahaha loved this review! Are you planning on reading the second book?
OH my. Loved your review and I think I'll be staying away from this one. All the stuff you mentioned would have annoyed the everlovin' crap out of me. Thanks for sharing. ;)
I probably would have agreed with you, if the book took me more than 2 days to read (okay, 6 hours to read...over 2 days lol). But Tris? Oye she got annoying.
Sally there is no way I am reading the second book. I can't handle how much I might rage, haha!
I know you don't want to read the second book, and in your review you state plenty of people will say things are explained in the second book, but... they are, lol. If you really want answers to these questions, you'd have to read the next book. If you don't care then whatevs, to each his own.But that being said, I'm very mad at you for ruining this book for me! (sarcasm) I LOVED this book, and now that you've pointed out all of the stuff that you did, I can't not notice it. HOW DARE YOU SPEAK THE TRUTH!
hahaa hey gurl. I dunno I just....I feel like Roth was "write first, think later." So even if she addresses things in the second book, I still can't forgive her for not fully forming any ideas in the first, with all the random ridiculousness and trips to cool-town she took us on. I can't read anymore of her writing right now. It's too much for me. Maybe I'm just over YA in general. It's all the same teenage girl first person special brain better than you nonsense.AND GOOD I'M GLAD I RUINED IT FOR YOU THEN. (hee hee hee <3)
All the things you're bitching about are in the second book lol ;) Really though the second book was MUCH different than the first, but if you don't want to read it you can always wait for the movie. lol!
Yes I actually think I will see the movie! Now that I know the story I do want to see what they're gonna do with it, and I feel like they could improve upon some of the stuff. Or they could totally do a flop movie too, we'll see.
I heard the director from Harry Potter picked it up, so chances are it will be good! Do you like YA Fantasy books, you should try Shadow and Bone if you do, I liked it, but I also liked Divergent lol!
lol i like how this review keeps getting longer as I add things I forgot to point out the ridiculousness of.
For now I've sworn off of getting into anymore YA then is already on my physical bookshelf just so I can kind of break from it for now, but I'll think about checking that out, thank you!
yeah I know how you feel, It's easy to get sick of the YA genre.
Cari wrote: "yeah I know how you feel, It's easy to get sick of the YA genre."Maybe that's why my YA books can't hold my attention at work anymore. How depressing :(
I don't think I can tell you enough how much I enjoy your reviews. This one was flawless and articulated everything I felt (why do I have so many feelings about this book) about Divergent.
Aw, thanks so much! :D I'm glad you enjoy them!
Excellent review! All of my friends gave Divergent 4 or 5 stars, but I'm beginning to be disappointed with YA, so I wanted to make sure before reading it. Thanks for helping me decide! :)
You're very welcome! <3
"And what’s with everyone being white collar? And how blue collar jobs are for the factionless, which the author speaks of as if they’re on the same level as crazy homeless people. I sorely hope she doesn’t think that in real life. Tris speaks about them as if they’re pariahs. Construction workers, bus drivers, gasp, the horror. The villain wants to get rid of them. Oh yes. Oh yes. Get rid of your laborers, what villain who dreams of prosperity DOESN’T get rid of the labors? Hahaha Roth you’re killing me."Oh thank you, someone else who was REALLY FREAKING IRRITATED by this.
The economics of the novel are never actually explained. At all. And they make no sense.
I thought I loved this book but while reading this review I realized I am totally 100% agreeing with everything you are saying. Now I am wondering why I enjoyed the book so much in the first place if I have so many problems with it...hmm...you know maybe I was crazy when I read Divergent. Because when I read Insurgent I didn't like it at all.
I agree on the Will point.
This is the best review ever. <3
I LOVE YOU. you said everything im thinking. 10 pages into this book i was like OMG this book is STUPID. UGH. when idiot books get popular it just makes me so mad.
I enjoyed this book well enough, but also agree with a lot of what you said, especially the part about Will. That part in the story made me so frustrated. I saw it as wholly unnecessary. I think Tris could have tried much harder to avoid that outcome before deciding it was her only option.I also had a hard time liking Tris. I found her to be overly cruel and unforgiving towards many people, especially Al.
Your review was hilarious and spot on. I actually enjoyed the book for just dumb fun, but I laughed aloud several times when reading your review. Can you read Insurgence just so I can read it, then be more entertained by your take on it?
Thank you so much for writing this review! I needed a good laugh. :) Though I really enjoyed reading Divergent, I totally get your point on how illogical and crazy everything was.
But maybe that's why I liked it....because sometimes, it's more interesting to read about things that you know can never possibly happen than read ordinary things things that can. (I know this makes no sense)
Love this review. Hated Tris so much. Disgusting, pathetic excuse for a main character.
Just started it and I'm really enjoying it. Compared to Matched, this is pretty darn good. Matched I have put down twice, because it sucks so bad!!!
Wow, hilarious review. I completely agree about the train.
Wow! lol ok, im speechless for a moment...ok i can talk now. So wow! this review was hilarious and I totally agree with you in some things, but I still got to stay that the book interested me and I did sort of like it (if you ignore all the stuff you just said about it). It definitely did remind me of the Hunger Games and that is a really big no no in my book. Other than that it was pretty interesting and caught my attention. (However it pisses me off that the Hunger Games didn't really get any praise [or at least not as much as Divergent] and it is totally better and ORIGINAL! Yea, I don't get it :/ )But Thanks for the laugh, Wigs!! Let me know if you ever do another review!! ;) lol
Looove the review! Definitely one of the worst books I've ever read and it just boggles me how famous and well-liked it is! Everything about it is just.. dumb.
A great review. Definitely made question if I wanted to read Divergent. I think I'll still give the first several chapters a shot and decide if I'll go on. But thanks! That was a thorough, solid review.
Okay, we need to talk about the train for a second. What. Is with. The Train. Why doesn’t it ever stop? (except for that one time when they rode it to the end of the city.) Why is this train an asshole? Didn’t jump on on time? Oops, you failed. Now you’re homeless. Loser. Oops, you fell off and now you’re dead. Lol we don’t stop the train here, bitch. Learn to live.lol, the train was kind of a jerk now that I think about it. Maybe all those factionless people thought it would be funny to build a train that doesn't stop.
Ava wrote: "How could you hate this book?!"See above review ^ lol
