Book #38: Divergent, by Veronica Roth
Oct. 17th, 2011 08:41 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
grav_ityWell...that happened.
I am so torn about this book. I think it was over-hyped to me, and I was expecting it to be the BEST. THING. EVER. And it's very good, and I am very excited about the prospect of getting two more of them...but I didn't connect with it as much as I wanted to.
(Admittedly, I am sort of ill right now, and I have to be at work in eight hours, which is just depressing, so take that as you will.)
That said? This book was good. I love the twisty-ness of if, how hard Tris works, and how she comes into her own because she wants to. I love how she became strong, how she manipulated the programming, and I loved that she learned to have fun.
I am intrigued to see what happens in the next books with more exposure to Amity and Candor.
I wasn't sold on Tobias until Tris's observation that even when he saved her life, he treated her like she was strong. *pets them both*
I did really, really like the book's take on religion. I am guessing by the acknowledgements that Roth is a fairly devout Christian, and it showed in elements of her writing, but the overwhelming theme of the book was, to me, that exclusivity and focusing on single traits isn't always a good thing, even for the Abnegation, arguably the most Godly of all the factions in the book.
Okay, I'll be honest: I am annoyed that Tris's parents, Will, Al, Christina and Tori all got HORRIBLY SCREWED while the bad guys and the Morally Questionably Assholes got to see book two. I'm SHALLOW, okay? At least I'm HONEST. I like happy endings. That's why I didn't click with this book.
I liked that the book was sort of a weird cross between Harry Potter and The Hunger Games, with a side serving of Ender's Game (Tris's singlemindedness when it came to survival, in particular, though she has a humanity that Ender lacks), but I am hoping that it really goes for broke in book two.
So I'm giving it an 8/10 for being interesting, well-developed, mostly brainy and self-rescuing, and for not pulling any punches (even though I kind of wish it had, sort of...)
+++
Lucky Charms, shower, bed. On the bright side, at 5AM I can get The Scorpio Races (even though I can't start reading it until 9:30...and that's assuming we can extract it from the stock room...).
I am so torn about this book. I think it was over-hyped to me, and I was expecting it to be the BEST. THING. EVER. And it's very good, and I am very excited about the prospect of getting two more of them...but I didn't connect with it as much as I wanted to.
(Admittedly, I am sort of ill right now, and I have to be at work in eight hours, which is just depressing, so take that as you will.)
That said? This book was good. I love the twisty-ness of if, how hard Tris works, and how she comes into her own because she wants to. I love how she became strong, how she manipulated the programming, and I loved that she learned to have fun.
I am intrigued to see what happens in the next books with more exposure to Amity and Candor.
I wasn't sold on Tobias until Tris's observation that even when he saved her life, he treated her like she was strong. *pets them both*
I did really, really like the book's take on religion. I am guessing by the acknowledgements that Roth is a fairly devout Christian, and it showed in elements of her writing, but the overwhelming theme of the book was, to me, that exclusivity and focusing on single traits isn't always a good thing, even for the Abnegation, arguably the most Godly of all the factions in the book.
Okay, I'll be honest: I am annoyed that Tris's parents, Will, Al, Christina and Tori all got HORRIBLY SCREWED while the bad guys and the Morally Questionably Assholes got to see book two. I'm SHALLOW, okay? At least I'm HONEST. I like happy endings. That's why I didn't click with this book.
I liked that the book was sort of a weird cross between Harry Potter and The Hunger Games, with a side serving of Ender's Game (Tris's singlemindedness when it came to survival, in particular, though she has a humanity that Ender lacks), but I am hoping that it really goes for broke in book two.
So I'm giving it an 8/10 for being interesting, well-developed, mostly brainy and self-rescuing, and for not pulling any punches (even though I kind of wish it had, sort of...)
+++
Lucky Charms, shower, bed. On the bright side, at 5AM I can get The Scorpio Races (even though I can't start reading it until 9:30...and that's assuming we can extract it from the stock room...).
