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A review by pixifirebolt
Divergent by Veronica Roth
5.0
I really wasn't expecting to like this book as it was very hyped up, particularly in the world of booktube and I have read several books because of them being hyped and liked very few. But this one I really liked! I saw a few negative reviews and I can understand not loving this book, but hating it?
I just want to address a criticism I read that there wasn't enough world building and that you never find out the dystopia came to be. I did notice that it wasn't explained fully how the factions were formed but there is a passage in Chapter 5 that decades ago it was the fault of human personality that caused a warring world and so society divided into factions depending on the component of human personality that they believed to be the cause for the world's disarray. That's paraphrasing but the actual passage isn't a lot longer so I can understand why you might forget about it when writing a review.
As for the world building, this is the first book of a trilogy and too much world building in one book can lead to the book having very little plot and therefore leads to the book being very slow paced and boring. Yes, there could have been a little more, but I prefer plot driven books so I definitely liked that the author didn't delve crazily into explaining where everything is and why it's there, what it looks like etc. A basic description does me just fine.
Now for what I actually liked. I love the concept of a divided world that is divided based on qualities and where a person actually gets to decide the faction they join. I thought that it was really well thought out including how a society like that would work politically and the responsibilities each faction would have.
I'm not usually a fan of the first person as it can tend towards focusing too much on the thoughts of a person rather than what's going on plot-wise but I feel like Veronica Roth really got the balance right and managed to keep it fairly fast paced but still giving time to the protragonist's (Tris) thoughts.
This is actually more like 4.5 stars because I do have one criticism which is that I did not find the romance between Tris and Four convincing. It was pretty obvious from the point that they met that Four was going to be the romantic interest, but they were suddenly madly in love with each other after hardly knowing each other. I didn't get it. But that is the only thing I didn't like so I didn't think it was worth taking a whole star away.
I just want to address a criticism I read that there wasn't enough world building and that you never find out the dystopia came to be. I did notice that it wasn't explained fully how the factions were formed but there is a passage in Chapter 5 that decades ago it was the fault of human personality that caused a warring world and so society divided into factions depending on the component of human personality that they believed to be the cause for the world's disarray. That's paraphrasing but the actual passage isn't a lot longer so I can understand why you might forget about it when writing a review.
As for the world building, this is the first book of a trilogy and too much world building in one book can lead to the book having very little plot and therefore leads to the book being very slow paced and boring. Yes, there could have been a little more, but I prefer plot driven books so I definitely liked that the author didn't delve crazily into explaining where everything is and why it's there, what it looks like etc. A basic description does me just fine.
Now for what I actually liked. I love the concept of a divided world that is divided based on qualities and where a person actually gets to decide the faction they join. I thought that it was really well thought out including how a society like that would work politically and the responsibilities each faction would have.
I'm not usually a fan of the first person as it can tend towards focusing too much on the thoughts of a person rather than what's going on plot-wise but I feel like Veronica Roth really got the balance right and managed to keep it fairly fast paced but still giving time to the protragonist's (Tris) thoughts.
This is actually more like 4.5 stars because I do have one criticism which is that I did not find the romance between Tris and Four convincing. It was pretty obvious from the point that they met that Four was going to be the romantic interest, but they were suddenly madly in love with each other after hardly knowing each other. I didn't get it. But that is the only thing I didn't like so I didn't think it was worth taking a whole star away.