Review: Divergent

Divergent by Veronica Roth
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This book has definitely been one of my favorite dystopian novels I've read so far this year. The plot follows Tris, who is born into Abnegation and later chooses to join the Dauntless faction. A majority of the story follows her through her initiate training and discovering dark secrets about the world in which she resides. To make things more complicated, romance begins to bud between her and her instructor Four.

What I liked about this book:
1. This book is incredibly fun to read. I mean, I could bearly put it down from page 1. Every single chapter is jam packed with action that propels me to keep reading! If you start it, just be prepared to dedicate the next couple of hours in your life reading.

2. This book doesn't entirely focus on the romantic aspect between Tris and Four. I absolutely HATE it when love interests push characters to make irrational and stupid decisions. Good job, Roth!

3. I liked Tris. She's a realistic and relatable character. However, I did notice that she got a lot of "protagonist treatment" though. It was almost as if everyone automatically loved her and it was just so easy for her love interest to return her affections.

What I didn't like about this book:
1. The story was phenomenal, but the writing quality wasn't great. In some chapters, the plot was extremely rushed and there was a ridiculous lack of sentence fluency.

2. Super cliche. This book was basically a crazy mixture between Harry Potter, Hunger Games, Twilight, and whatever other popular young adult SF/fantasy novels. But it seems as if this is the current trend for authors because this is basically what everyone has been publishing. I want something original and insightful.

3. How the heck is everyone NOT divergent? Sure Tris is special, but some of her friends also displayed qualities from other factions. This also confuses me because shouldn't Amity and Abnegation be somewhat the same thing? (Minor thing: the definition abnegation is one of the worst to associate with selfless...isn't there a better word in the thesaurus or something?)

Even though this hasn't been my favorite book ever, I still think that it was really entertaining to read. I would recommend this to young adult and science fiction fans.

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