Divergent by Veronica Roth
(Book #1 of the Divergent series)
Rating: 🍁🍁🍁
The Problems:
1) The 5-faction world makes no sense. I get how it's structured and what's going on, but I don't understand why it's structured that way. And really, there is no way on God's green earth that human beings could subsume all aspects of their mind/personality to a single trait. We are far too complex.
2) After reading all 500-ish pages, I still have no idea what it means to be Divergent. Why does being 'Divergent' make Tris immune to simulations? Four isn't Divergent, and yet he manages to display characteristics of all 5 factions and is similiarly immune to the simulations. Huh? Why isn't everyone Divergent?
3) Tris came awfully close to crossing the line into TSTL territory. She was told repeatedly that manipulating the simulations would reveal her identity as a Divergent, and yet what does she do? Repeatedly manipulate the simulations. Her continual whining about being selfish or not selfish enough (make up your mind already!), or too passive or too violent, or {insert hypocritical contradiction here} started to get on my nerves after a while as well.
4) The lack of real training. Most of the book is spent on Tris's training to become Dauntless, but aside from an initial demonstration of each skill (shooting, knife throwing, fighting, etc.), no one ever trains her. Does she just miraculously become the kick ass Dauntless heroine? I don't care how long you spend doing something, if no one corrects or teaches you, you will not improve. At least not in the relatively short time span outlined in this book.
5) It took forever for anything to happen. In fact, it's not until the last 100 pages that any kind of plot starts.
In spite of all this, I still managed to really enjoy reading this book. There's enough action to keep it interesting, and it's written well enough to overlook most of the logical inconsistencies. If you're able to suspend disbelief, you'll enjoy Divergent.
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