From the Bookshelf of Reading In Between The Lines YA Book Club…

Divergent (Divergent, #1)

Veronica Roth

Start date: March 1, 2014

Finish date: March 31, 2014

Discussion: Montlhy Reads

Discussion leader: Jordan

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Montlhy Reads

The Queen of The Tearling Discussion
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last updated Mar 06, 2016 07:38PM

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What Members Thought

Jan 21, 2017 Michelle rated it it was ok

Shelves: new-this-year-jan

**2.5**

Even though I hated most of it, there were parts that I did enjoy. Plus, the audiobook made me like this a lot more than if I had read that horribly boring and plain writing style.

I might read the rest of the series cause I'm a bit interested on the story & world but it will have to be a day that that I'm extremely calm & happy so that I won't hate Tris, Four, and the writing style nearly as much as I do right now. ...more

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Jun 23, 2015 Grace rated it liked it

This book left me a little confused about how I felt about it. It took me a few days to get my thoughts together.

I don’t have a lot of experience reading dystopian. Looking back there are only three others that I have read:
The Giver – one of my favorite books (haven’t read the rest of the series)
The Hunger Games – one of my favorite series
The Host – A pleasant surprise that I ended up loving

I think what I liked about these books is that they were thought provoking and left an impression. I didn’ This book left me a little confused about how I felt about it. It took me a few days to get my thoughts together.

I don’t have a lot of experience reading dystopian. Looking back there are only three others that I have read:
The Giver – one of my favorite books (haven’t read the rest of the series)
The Hunger Games – one of my favorite series
The Host – A pleasant surprise that I ended up loving

I think what I liked about these books is that they were thought provoking and left an impression. I didn’t get this with Divergent.

If you can suspend your disbelief and are looking for a fun ride this definitely delivers. It well paced, action packed, and entertaining. I enjoyed the book while I was reading it but was left empty at the end.

Here are some of the things I have issues with:
The world building is weak. We don’t get a back story, so are therefore left without a foundation. What happened to life as we know it? How did we get to this point? The faction system doesn’t make sense and is not a plausible functioning societal structure. How can people be classified by just one personality trait? Wouldn’t there be more divergents? If you are born in one faction and imprinted from birth with those ideals and then choose to switch factions, wouldn’t that make you divergent? In a society obsessed with categorizing, wouldn't the factionless be considered a wild card and possibly a threat? Segregation to eradicate evil is their answer to a better world. Each faction turns away from the traits that they think caused the destruction of the previous way of life and honor the positive trait to eradicate the negative. For example Candor believes lies are the cause, Erudite – ignorance, Dauntless – cowardice, etc. But each of the five factions has their own ideals, so even though one faction rejects certain traits, the other four factions (about 80% of the population) still exhibit them. So those negative traits (lying, cowardice, ignorance, selfishness, cruelty, etc.) aren’t really eradicated.

I also don’t like how some of the factions are portrayed. How does wearing all black, having tattoos and piercings make you brave? And the dauntless aren’t so much brave but reckless. Most of the book is taken up by the initiation process which is full of random and unnecessary acts of violence. Why are Erudite the bad guys, and by association to Tris, Dauntless the good guys? This degrades intellect and promotes violence. The generalization of the groups also bugs me. I guess each faction can’t be made up of good and bad.

I wasn’t a fan of the romance. It felt awkward and unnecessary to the advancement of the plot. I think Tris and Four each brought something to the table, but I would have liked to see them more as good friend than a romantic couple.

This doesn’t detract from the overall enjoyment of the book but it does make me question the author’s priorities. This book is 487 page long, and although there entire book was fast pace and full of action, we don’t get to the meat of the story until page 415. I think less prep work and more plot would be better.

I will be continuing with rest of the series, since I was left with a lot a questions and hope the rest of the series answers them. It may still redeem itself. ...more

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