I have a friend who is in love with the book
Divergent. I also have a sister who read it and told me I should. So I kinda decided that someday I would, but I didn't exactly get a great recommendation (in fact, Scooter's exact words were, "you should read Divergent. It's a wee bit predictable, and some parts are super lame. Glowing review, right? You should read it.") so I wasn't particularly concerned about getting around to it.
And then it came out in movie form and a bunch of my church friends all saw it, my one friend who's in love with it saw it and posted about it, and everything, but I still didn't really care about it. I didn't actually even read the blog that went with it. I knew nothing about this book, but I decided it wasn't exactly my thing. Then Alli, my best friend since 3rd grade, listened to it on CD and she told me super vaguely about the plot, which interesting me enough to finally watch the movie.
I loved it. So much. We went to see it on the 7th, and I bought the first book, Divergent, that night. I had finals the study for and take the next week, so it took me a while to finish it, but I finally did around the 11th, and then immediately started Insurgent and finished it on the 16th, then started Allegiant and finished that yesterday.
Let me just start by saying that I don't love teen novels, especially the popular ones. I haven't read many of them (the only ones that come to mind are Hunger Games, The Mortal Instruments, and now Divergent. Oh, I guess Harry Potter, too, but that seems like an exception maybe since I didn't actually love reading the series until I got to the 5th book), but that's because I really dislike them. I always end up loving the stories, and usually I get really sucked in, but they're really... uh, how do I explain it... easy? They're an easy read, you don't have to think much, usually they're in first person (all the ones I listed are) and it bothers me. It makes me lazy. This isn't something I've always known about, I did have a blog a while back about how fantastic Hunger Games was. And after I finished that series, I wanted something else to read, and that's the first time I picked up His Dark Materials (which is so fantastic. I highly recommend it). But His Dark Materials is written better than Hunger Games, and I couldn't focus enough or use my brain enough to handle it. It was too thick. Which is embarrassing.
I dislike feeling like I can't handle something that "advanced." But every single time I've gotten into a teen series thing, that's without fail what happens. I can no longer focus on the better books. This is where I personally draw a line between a story and literature. If it's something that's easy to get into and doesn't require a lot of brain power, I just call it a story. If it's something that I actually can feel improving my cognitive skills, that's literature. There's just a difference.
All this said, I feel the exact same way about Veronica Roth's writing. There's nothing spectacular about it, and I had to engage myself with critiquing what she wrote as I read it to not fall into this trap. She had some entertaining dialogue, and there was like 1 or 2 sentences in the entire series that stood out to me. But, that's not a lot. 1 or 2? In 3 books? When I was reading The Way of Kings, I did not get through a full chapter before stopping and running upstairs to read a sentence to my mom, because I thought it was written so poetically.
He seemed so cold. Like a shadow caused by heat and light falling on someone honorable and true, casting this black imitation behind. It was such a cool visual. Love it. And I just didn't get any love of the prose in Roth's stories.
However. The story was so good. I still do not love the way Roth writes. But her story was so well thought out and captivating that these characters won my heart, and I cried so hard at the end of it. Berserk once said that the ending for His Dark Materials made him really sad for the characters, but that was praise in itself, because he actually cared about what happened to them. I'd say it's similar here. The way the story is told might not be the best, but the story itself is so good that I genuinely cared about these characters and the ending destroyed me a little. PS, Mom would not want to read this one haha. She could probably hand the movies, though.
Honestly, maybe the story isn't all that captivating for everyone, but I loved it. Here's a quick run down of what drew me in so much. The story starts off in a place with factions. There's 5 of them and they each value something different. You're born into whatever faction your family is a part of, and the year you turn 16, you participate in the yearly Choosing Ceremony, where you decide upon a faction to live in for the rest of your life. There's a test you take to kind of help you figure out where you could belong, but the decision is yours to pick whatever you want. But the factions don't mix, so if you choose differently than you family, well.
Faction before blood. The factions are the most important things in your life. You swear to live a certain way, and nothing will break that bond. It's just not done. So the five factions are Abnegation (selflessness and serving), Amity (peace and harmony), Candor (honesty and truth), Erudite (knowledge and learning) and Dauntless (fearlessness and bravery). When Alli had finished reading this, she's going on telling me about how she thinks I would be Dauntless, which I just kinda nodded and went along with, pre-movie. While watching the movie, I realized how wrong she was. The Dauntless faction is really enticing, but there's no way I could do it. One of the things they do in the movie is just like, they climb things. I know I talk all the time about climbing and how much I love it, but I'm tied in. I trust the system, I trust my belayer, it's beautiful. I do not free climb things. The thought terrifies me. It makes my hands start sweating if I really think about free climbing. It's not my thing, it hasn't been for as long as I can remember. But that's like the first thing they do. They just free climb a bunch of scaffolding.
Anyway. The movie ends, and I feel really energized by watching the Dauntless this whole time, but really I think I'm more of an Erudite person. I get really excited to register for classes, I like to read, I'm pretty smart especially if I apply myself, my worst subject in history and I still pull a decent grade there. My second worst subject is the one I'm majoring in, and if I actually do a couple homework problems before taking the test, then I usually get over 100% on the test. So, I'm really looking at being Erudite. I love Alli, but she was wrong about me. But, the movie was really good, and while we were wondering around Flatirons, we found a second hand bookstore, and they had Divergent for pretty cheap, so I bought it and started reading it.
The difference is kinda amazing. I love the movie. I will own it when it comes out. And I think it did a really good job following the book. But actually reading the book and getting the extra details here and there about the factions, I started to see what Alli was saying.
The thing about Dauntless is that it represent the kind of person I always wanted to be. The kind of person that I think I could have been if I chose to hang out with those friends of mine more than these friends. And I think, if these factions were real, I would blend in well. I like to be loud, I like zip lines, I like climbing, I wear a lot of black, I have crazy colored hair... I mean, it just continues on. I would blend in well with them. But what about for how I act?
I never really thought of myself as particularly brave. And after a brief conversation about it, I learned that neither does Chaelomen. And after a long conversation about it, I learned my best friend Sara doesn't really see that as a quality that stands out about me. It was kinda heart breaking. I love everything about Dauntless. Everything. I would choose it in a heartbeat. I think I could also fit in with Erudite fairly well, but Dauntless would have been the more natural place for me. And yet, two people who I think know me fairly well wouldn't have even considered it a possibility so much.
It was just frustrating, and I talked to a couple of my other friends, and they think I could be in Dauntless, no problem. For the record, I know the factions are fictional, but the traits are real and asking which faction my friends see me in is a quick way to find out who they think I am. So, I guess it just depends who you ask. But it was helpful for me to see that how I want to be perceived doesn't quite line up with how I am perceived, and that will probably make me try to be better.
Even in just the little things,
We believe in ordinary acts of bravery, in the courage that drives one person to stand up for another. It's just beautiful, the things they believe. Overcoming your fears, not letting your fears take control of your life. Shouting for those who can only whisper, defending those who cannot defend themselves. I love it. And the way it all fits together, all the faction and the direction the story took, it was really impressive. It spoke to me almost directly, and that drew me in for the ride, and I cared about what happened in the story (similar to why I love Frozen, actually).
They always tell each other to be brave. Just, "Be brave, Tris," when they have to go through something scary. And Four's instructor always instructed him to adapt. Having a hard time with this? Adapt. Be better. I love it. Those are great things to hold on to. And it's actually a way I instruct my kids when I teach rock climbing, now that I think about it. "Be better, challenge yourself, have some integrity."
And I'm proud that I can love this story with my entire being, and still see its flaws. But the flaws don't hinder the story, the just don't enhance it.
There are so many ways to be brave in this world. Sometimes bravery involves laying down your life for something bigger than yourself, or for someone else. Sometimes it involves giving up everything you have ever known, or everyone you have every loved, for the sake of something greater.
But sometimes it doesn't.
Sometimes it is nothing more than gritting your teeth through the pain, and the work of everyday, the slow walk toward a better life.
Good story. Definitely recommended. I guess a lot of people were mad at the ending and thought that Roth only ended it how she did to get a rise out of people, but I don't believe that. I think it was the way to end it. It was hard, but it was what had to happen. And it killed me. But it was good. It was right.
And now I'm onto the 2nd book in the Stormlight Archives! Yay :)
(The first was The Way of Kings, and now it's Words of Radiance. only 8 more books to go! Brandon Sanderson just needs to write them.) ((oh, and in case anyone -coughBerserk- is wondering, I am still reading Song of Ice and Fire. And I still have my place marked in The Blade Itself for Rocky Reads. haha))
