YA Book Review: Divergent by Veronica Roth – 4 out of 5

Divergent by Veronica Roth

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Yeah, okay, it’s good.

Let’s be honest. I picked up this book for two distinct reasons:

1) It’s super hyped and it will soon be a movie
2) It’s set in Chicago, where I now live.

That’s it, the only reasons. I had no idea going into it what it would be. I fully expected it to be far over-hyped, for it to be silly YA, for it to feel like a copy of other books, etc.

But you know what? I liked it. I found myself eating it up. When I had to put it down because life intervened I found myself sucked back in. I found myself thinking about the characters when I wasn’t reading.

To me, this book is a hybrid of The Giver and Ender’s Game. Surprised I didn’t say The Hunger Games? Really, it’s nothing of the sort. It just came out around the same time, is a trilogy, and unfortunately has a similar cover. I totally judged this book by the cover for a long time and had I continued to do so I would have missed out on a really enjoyable read.

Is Roth the best writer in the world? No. But I loved the character she made from Tris. Tris is effin’ scary, guys. I’ve heard some people complain about this book because they couldn’t connect with Tris as a character. Well, I certainly hope not. Tris is a straight-up B*A* with some serious anger issues. She’s still a person and can love and all that crap but when it comes down to it, she’ll do what she needs to do and won’t even care. It was downright ballsy for that to be the character Roth created and I like it. I guess in that respect it is a little like Katniss. I just hope when I get to read the rest of this series Tris stays true to herself.

Anyway, I love the kind of book that gets me absorbed and keeps the pages turning. This book will do that to you. Just let yourself get soaked up in it and you’ll find yourself loving it.