Don’t hate me but I hate Divergent

Don’t hate me but I hate Divergent  

        Divergent by Veronica Ruth is certainly getting attention these days. It’s being hailed as the next Hunger Games. It has a movie coming out in 2014 with such talents as golden globe nominated Shailene Woodley. (See picture below)

It has 123,820 five star reviews on good read. It seems like everyone loves Divergent. Everyone but me.  

         Divergent is set in a dystopian society where every sixteen year old is divided in to a different fraction based on virtues. The fractions are Candor (the honest), Abnegation (the selfless), Dauntless (the brave), Amity (the peaceful), and Erudite (the intelligent).  

          The main character Tris comes from Anegation but has a hard time conforming to their selfless and giving life style.  She finds herself drawn to the reckless, train hopping, and black wearing Dauntless. She feels as if she has to stay with her family though.  Tris knows it would devastate her parents if she left them.

The beginning is really interesting I loved Tris’s character.  She came from an Amish-like background. I found it funny watching her unfittingly bow her head down to the ground and forgot to give up bus seats. You could really see her internal struggle. She doesn’t belong in abnegation, but if she left she would ruin her family ties.  

Tris then takes the quiz that is supposed to tell her what fraction to join. Tris hallucinates all these different scenarios and the choices she makes affects the outcome of the quiz. Unfortunately Tris is a special snowflake ( which means the M.C is more special than the rest, shocker!) a divergent who could go into multiple fractions. Being a divergent is also very dangerous, so Trish must tell no one.  More confused than ever as she could be both Dauntless or Abnegation, Tris follows her heart  and ....joins Dauntless.  Sadly Dauntless is hard to get in to . Only half of the people trying to join  will.  If Tris fails she will end up  becoming fractionless ( a hobo). Tris has to learn to fight and win battles, overcome her fears and deal with "hot" mean love interests teachers like Four.  She also makes new friends in Will, Christina, and Albert.

           The middle of the book was really great it. It held a lot of plot .It was interesting seeing Tris struggle to be good at fighting. Most M.Cs are naturally gifted so I enjoyed watching her learn. Tris also shows how recklessly and stupidly brave she is in the section, the girl is willing to have daggers thrown at her head and jump off buildings for goodness sake.

   Tris’s friends were despicable.  Trish was their favorite person when she was weak. They all loved to pet her on the head and introduce her to hamburgers. They didn’t like Tris so much when she was competition. As soon as she got good Albert betrayed her and Christina and Will got all jealous and bratty. Personally I found the bit character Uriah a lot better friend. He was cool with Tris when she was a loser and when she was scoring the metaphorical winning goal. Uriah …

 

Thanks to Tris’s special divergent powers, she was really good at the fear controlling portion of the tests she has to take to join Dauntless. After working really hard, almost dying, and being special Tris places first in the tests and gets to join dauntless. I love a good underdog tale So I was thrilled for her! She did it!  It was such a great book! This is the perfect  way to end it … wait what? There are a hundred pages left? How can that be? Tris did everything, already. What could be left?

 This is what made me hate divergent.  This is what  ruined what could have been a great novel. This is what should have waited to happen in the next book.  Thanks to the fact Veronica Ruth decided to squeeze in an insane twist in the last one hundred pages I will never be a fan of divergent. 

 Suddenly the day after Tris finally succeeds at her 400 paged goal the Erudite (smart guys) brainwash all the Dauntless to be their killing zombies and attack the Abnegation. Tris parents die protecting her sorta half way connecting the family again. Too bad their now dead. Tris then ends up fractionless anyways. After all the tests she did in Dauntless to prevent this from happening, Tris is  still a hobo.

 

The twist ruined the book. It tried to cram in three hundred pages worth of plot in the last one hundred pages. There was too much going on to make it look polished or professional.  It was all way to rushed.  In fact  it made the whole novel look stupid. You don’t change the main point of the book. The whole story was leading to see if Trish would get in to Dauntless.  Sure, there was weird stuff going on in the Erudite area but that just seemed like foreshadowing for the sequel. Yes, their were other fractions hating on Abnegation but it seemed like that was to give Four a backstory.  The mindless zombies attacking people thing just was  just peculiar.  It came up way to suddenly and made little sense. I’d really love to know, Veronica Ruth why make a great story but then have ruin it? How come the climax can't  fit in with the beginning or middle?

All in all I give divergent one top hat out of five

 

     What are your opinions on divergent? Are you a fan?  Did you like the ending?  What do you think I should review next?

Fare thee well ~Milady