Divergent

This book popped up as a recommendation when I was looking into Keira Cass's Selection novels. The promise that it would be similar to The Hunger Games, the promise of a 2014 movie release of the book and a series of books to follow this one meant I was intrigued enough to give it a try.

The story is based in a Dystopian society where people are split into 5 ‘factions', Erudite are those who love knowledge and learning, Candor those who seek truth and honesty, Amity are those who seek peace, Abnigation those who value selflessness and Dauntless who value bravery. On their 16th birthday children take a test to establish to which faction they will belong and choose either that in which they were raised or they can transfer to another which a test shows they are more suited to.

The heroine of this novel Beatrice is found to be one of a special few who are classed as ‘Divergent' and therefore not suited to just one faction but could fit many. She has to choose whether to stay with her Abnigation family or leave them behind for a new life. It is a fantastic concept and once I'd got to grips with what each faction stood for and the language of the book I was utterly hooked.

Beatrice's choice leads us on an adventure where she has to fight for survival, all the time hiding her Divergent status as she is warned it can bring danger to her. She meets Four who helps her to learn more about her new life and she finds herself falling in love.

I was utterly gripped by this book, it was easily able to hold it's own against The Hunger Games and should translate really well to the big screen. It had excitement, emotion and lots of action and a great cliff hanger ending to lead us forward to book 2 & 3. I fully expect this book to shoot back into the book charts upon release of the movie so why not jump the crowd and read it ahead of the movie as it is absolutely awesome.

This has to be a new record for me. I don't think I've ever disliked the first hundred pages of a book so much and then loved the rest.

As this is my first foray into the current YA lit world (I've read Harry Potter and Twilight, but those are both so mainstream and kind of five years ago, it doesn't count to me), I had a lot to get used to. And I'm also not quite buying this “dystopia” trend. This world, while oppressive in some ways, doesn't really seem dystopian, but rather another way of doing things. You might as well call any other major modern city a dystopia, which you could probably make an argument for. I'll have to read more of these books do see how I feel about this genre.

The obvious flaw here is the world building. That anyone could think that separating a society by virtues they wish to uphold will somehow cure the world of conflict is ludicrous. Not to mention as the focus of the story shifted from Abnegation to Dauntless, the characterization of the so-called faction of bravery and action was absurd. Of course, this turns out to be a plot point, but it did not change the fact that it was extremely unsettling that unchecked aggression and competition was masquerading as courage. The Dauntless faction would have had to deal with uprisings left and right with the way they treated young people - feeding their hostility but not teaching them any discipline. That's a point-by-point checklist for a nuclear-level disaster. The implosion of this set-up was inevitable.

What got me though was the characters. I adore Tris. She's almost like a teenage Ellen Ripley, and that is not a name I throw around lightly, Ripley is my freaking hero. Tris' approach to the world is freakishly focused, she possesses a fiery stoicism that makes it riveting to read through her voice. It seems to me that she wasn't really attracted to the Dauntless faction because she's a thrill seeker who wants to spend her days jumping off buildings and freight trains; she joined Dauntless because she is a freight train, barreling forward blindly and in desperate need of direction. Dauntless doesn't give it to her, as said they don't give anyone anything other than a lot of emotional scars. She finds it within the situation, her status as Divergent, and her relationships with the people around her.

Speaking of which, the romance was pretty well done, though it did feel a little excessive after a while. I should mention that when it comes to romance I am somewhere between a sociopath and a 12-year-old. When I read about people kissing I want to run away flailing and screeching “Ewww.” So my view is slanted, obviously (Though the last book I reviewed had plenty of sex and human contact, and I was more than fine with it. It probably had to do with the fact that it involved adults). But Four and Tris' relationship does progress quite nicely, they have chemistry and a connection, but I do feel that it was a little weird that two people that are so incredibly guarded would become so intimate so quickly (emotionally intimate, of course, god get your head of the gutter). I even gushed a little bit at their first kiss, even though I was watching Se7en (Ha, seven fears) at the time and thus found myself saying “Awww” just as Kevin Spacey was getting shot in the head. It was oddly poetic.

Then, of course, there's the action and plot, which while predictable was very enjoyable. I figured out Four's identity and the big bad's plan pretty far off, so I did get a little impatient that Tris wasn't keeping up. And the villains are not particularly complex, they're ugly and maniacal and might as well be twirling their mustaches. But it was a lot of fun, there were moments where I got nervous, one point I even gasped out loud. I don't really know if Roth is very good at writing action sequences (you do not learn how to aim a gun that fast, I'm sorry), but she does know how to ratchet up suspense and keep you interested.

So I'm looking forward to the next book, though mostly for the characters (I really want to see more of Caleb, and possibly if Peter had more to him than evil), as I don't know where Roth is going to take this world that is already paper thin.

Paasvakantie! Geen school voor de kinderen! Er was een vriendin van Zelie in huis, en plots was er besloten om naar een film te gaan, en wel Divergent.

Ik had de naam al vaag gehoord, maar geen idee waar het over ging. “Iets met science fiction”, werd mij verzekerd, dus hey, waarom niet, dacht ik.

Het begon goed in de cinema, met een soort voorfilmpje voor Divergent zélf, net voor de film. Ik probeer zoveel mogelijk voorfilms te vermijden, dus ik zat daar met mijn ogen dicht en mijn vingers in mijn oren – proper, ongetwijfeld.

Afijn. De film bleek een soort kruising tussen Logan's Run en Hunger Games en dergelijke te zijn. Niet per se slecht, niet per se goed, maar wel intrigerend genoeg om mij zin te geven om het vervolg te weten te komen, en dus om het boek van de film te lezen en dan de vervolgen op het boek van de film.

Neen, ik heb niet veel nodig, neen.

En dus: Divergent, het boek. Dat blijkt onduidelijker en verwarder te zijn dan de film. Ik vond het boek minder goed dan de film, ja.

Niet omdat de film zo uitstekend goed is, maar omdat ik het boek gewoon niet goed vond. Spijtig.

Divergent speelt zich af in één stad, ergens in een onbestemde periode na een onbestemde catastrofe, en het is duidelijk dat er een soort sociaal experiment aan de gang is. Mensen worden opgedeeld in facties: Abnegation, Amity, Candor, Dauntless en Erudite, op basis van een test en eigen keuze. De grote meerderheid van de mensen passen exact in zo'n factie (ze zijn zelfopofferend, vredelievend, radikaal eerlijk, avontuurlijk of intelligent), het hoofdpersonage –uiteraard– past niet in één vakje, is “divergent”, een gevaar, tralala.

Ik snap wel dat het een boek voor tieners is, maar het had er toch een béétje minder vingerdik op mogen liggen.

Hoofdpersonage Beatrice (Tris) gaat van Abnegation naar Dauntless (in een soort sorting hat-ceremonie), blijkt na een tijdje natuurlijk uitstekend te zijn in al wat ze doet, wordt verliefd, spannende avonturen, zucht, geeuw.

De film steekt er tenminste nog een beetje Matrix-achtigs in, met simulaties waar Tris de simulatie om zich heen buigt, maar in het boek gaat het er gewoon om dat ze weet dat ze in een simulatie zit, en dat haar hartslag dus naar beneden gaat, en da's al waar de test op wacht. Ik ben geen fan van mevrouw Roths schrijfstijl, maar daar nog helemaal naast: ik ben een beetje allergisch aan slecht uitgedachte werelden.

Het materiaal, in het bijzonder de wapens en de hoogtechnologische dingen, kunnen duidelijk niet gemaakt zijn in enkel die ene stad. Het aantal inwoners is véél te klein voor een samenleving zoals omschreven. Het sociale experiment kan duidelijk alleen overleven als er ergens een Big Brother is die het leidt, de potentie voor chaos is daar veel te groot voor, en de manier waarop de macht verdeeld is, is totaal het tegengestelde van wat een mens zou verwachten. En er is een enorme muur rond de hele stad, dat alleen al is voldoende om al vanaf het eerste boek (of de film) te wéten dat we buiten die muur gaan kijken.

Het leest als een inderhaast uitgevonden wereldje, zonder geschiedenis, zonder bestaansreden, zonder maatschappij. Die Dauntless, waar het overgrote deel van het boek zich afspeelt, lijkt op niet veel meer dan een straatbende die bezigheidstherapiegewijs rondlummelt op trams. Ja, er wordt ons wel gezégd dat ze “de orde handhaven”, maar het is absoluut onduidelijk waar er conflict zou kunnen zijn in het ideale wereldje.

Ugh, tegenstekelijk slecht. En zo prekerig! Hopen dat het vervolg beter is.

I guess the best thing I can say about Divergent is that it's not quite as dumb as I thought it would be. In conclusion, not everyone is only Brave, Smart, Kind, Selfless OR Honest, it's just that everyone agrees that only one of those choices is the highest priority, except for Mary Sue Tris (and Her mother, her boyfriend and a bunch of other random people) who wants to be selfless and brave. Also, these are very narrowly defined, so if you want to be Selfless, you have to be so selfless that you don't even look at yourself in a mirror or wear anything other than gray and if you want to be brave you have to engage in physical combat, live in a compound built of precarious ledges, jump on to moving trains and get tattoos. There is no other way to be brave. Also, apparently society fractured this way to prevent violence and murder never exists anymore because...reasons.

So, yes, super dumb premise. I did like the idea of people self-segregating into value-based societies that are more important than vertical relationships, though. It was kind of fun to explore and I wish it had been filled out a little more to discuss in parallel the way that the internet and class distinction is segregating people by political belief in actual real life.

Also, the book was readable and fast-paced, even though kind of nothing happened. But I won't be moving on to the next book (unless I also find that for $2 at the used bookstore): I found none of the characters to be more than caricatures and I don't have a lot of faith that the world building isn't going to sucl.