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Book Review: Divergent (Divergent #1) Veronica Roth

Home Book ReviewsBook Review: Divergent (Divergent #1) Veronica Roth

Book Review: Divergent (Divergent #1) Veronica Roth

September 24, 2013 Posted by angelreads Book Reviews 2 Comments

Published Date:
 May 3rd 2011
Pages: 487 (Paperback)
Publisher:  Katherine Tegen Books and HarperCollinsChildren’sBooks
ISBN: 0007420412 

Book Depository – Amazon UK – Amazon US 

Synopsis 

In Beatrice Prior’s dystopian Chicago world, society is divided into five factions, each dedicated to the cultivation of a particular virtue–Candor (the honest), Abnegation (the selfless), Dauntless (the brave), Amity (the peaceful), and Erudite (the intelligent). On an appointed day of every year, all sixteen-year-olds must select the faction to which they will devote the rest of their lives. For Beatrice, the decision is between staying with her family and being who she really is–she can’t have both. So she makes a choice that surprises everyone, including herself.

During the highly competitive initiation that follows, Beatrice renames herself Tris and struggles alongside her fellow initiates to live out the choice they have made. Together they must undergo extreme physical tests of endurance and intense psychological simulations, some with devastating consequences. As initiation transforms them all, Tris must determine who her friends really are–and where, exactly, a romance with a sometimes fascinating, sometimes exasperating boy fits into the life she’s chosen. But Tris also has a secret, one she’s kept hidden from everyone because she’s been warned it can mean death. And as she discovers unrest and growing conflict that threaten to unravel her seemingly perfect society, she also learns that her secret might help her save those she loves . . . or it might destroy her 


Review 
I went into reading Divergent with high expectations and I wasn’t disappointed. Divergent is action packed and I couldn’t put it down, I was just hungry for more.


Veronicas’ writing is simply amazing and the world she built was unbelievably real. The way that she categorized each human into 5 different types of people, into 5 different factions; Dauntless, Abnegation, Erudite, Candor and Amity. They way that Veronica came up with a way to separated people in that, is beyond me. They world she created and set up was perfect, I could picture what everything that was happening, and where it was happening. At first I was a little confused with the world but after a while I did get used to it and it made a whole lot more sense to me. I also loved the concept of how they became a part of a faction.  

The heroine of Divergent is 16-year-old Beatrice. I love her character. Firstly she is female 2ndshe is totally, well she comes to be. She is everything I ask for in a main character and since it’s in her perspective it’s perfect. She is vulnerable in the right times, and strong when we need her to be.


Four what can I say about Four? He is just amazing. From our first impressions, some people might not like him that much as he brought forward as this tough strong character. But once Tris (Beatrice) gets to know him so do we. There is so many under layers and you understand why he built this wall. I also loved with a passion of the foreshadowing we had of Four in one of the first few chapters.


I loved how the relationship grew slowly between Tris and Four. It was nice for a YA novel to have a relationship to grow slowly. It was different and I think it was perfect. And I communed Veronica for that.


ACTION, ACTION, ACTION. I loved all the Action it was just ideal. If you love action then this book is for you. Guns, jumping off buildings, fighting, jumping on moving trains come on, if this does not sound epic, don’t know what does. There was so many heart- pounding, nail biting worthy moments. Especially the last part of the book, gave me an adrenaline rush. I also think that the villains in Divergent were very unexpected well to me at first they were and I did not expect things to happen the way that they did


I also liked that Veronica explore the theme of fear and how everyone has fears. And we need to sometimes overcome those fears in our lives. But sometimes we need to live with those fears. Which is demonstrated through Four and Tris. The concept of the tattoos, love it. I adore tattoos so I was very fascinated by it. It was very different and drew me in so much to the book.


The ending was wow, just so many things happening at once, but I was so happy that there was not a major cliff-hanger. I sometimes dislike these major cliff YA novels but Divergent didn’t have that.


There is only one thing I have negative to say and that’s I had no connection to most of the characters and this is very, very rare for me. I just did not feel anything for them (there will be a little spoiler here) when some characters died, I felt nothing. I was just like ‘oh they died.’ 


Some of my Favourite Quotes;

  “We believe in ordinary acts of bravery, in the courage that drives one person to stand up for another.” 

“I might be in love with you.” He smiles a little. “I’m waiting until I’m sure to tell you, though.”

I Give Divergent 4 out of 5 stars  

What are your thoughts on Divergent? 

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  • Astrid Scholte
    · Reply

    September 27, 2013 at 2:28 AM

    Great review Angel! I also loved the action, the build of the romance and the themes about fear. One of my issues with the book was I felt there were too many extraneous characters who I kept forgetting existed until they popped back up later in the book. I think that made it hard to connect them, as you mentioned. I was also confused with which characters were transfers and which were Dauntless-born. But maybe that was just me.

    Have you read the sequel? It’s even better! 🙂

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    • Angel Reader
      · Reply

      September 27, 2013 at 5:10 AM

      Hey, thank you. yes i think there was too many characters that you seem to forget untill they popped up again. hmmm yes I got a little confused with which were transfers as well, but i guess that did not really matter that much.
      I have yet to read the sequel as I have alot of books to read, but i cannot wait to into it.
      Thank you for commenting 🙂

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I have a love-hate relationship with this series. I have a love-hate relationship with this series. But I ended up really enjoying this one. It’s best friends to fake dating to-lovers. It’s always been you, bad-boy/good-girl, and I loved that. While Save Your Breath has quite a few tropes, it really leads itself to it, and it works. 

Aleks and Mia have known each other for years now. Since they were teenagers, that angst has been building up this whole time. And you can tell right from the get-go, it’s fantastic. I even wanted more of it, because I love pain. When Aleks went to live with Mia’s family as a teenager, sparks flew, but for many reasons, they both put their feelings aside. And well, now they are not only going to be fake-dating, but they might as well be engaged, too. 

I really enjoyed seeing how both Aleks and Mia both tried to hide how they were feeling throughout the whole ‘fake-dating’ situation, but anyone could see it. They know each other as no one else does. Aleks has a lot going on, and while I do think this was brushed over a little too much, Mia is his centre. Mia is a massive music star and is a female in the industry, so yeah, people don’t respect her. Obvsiouly because why couldn’t a female star be badass and write about the things that she has gone through? Aleks and Mia get each other, and that is very clear from the start; they are both just trying to squash everything. We get to see them slowly start to show how they feel, and well, one night it all explodes. 

Overall, I enjoyed this one a lot; it’s not my favourite of the series, but I had a great time reading it. I liked Aleks and Mia a lot as characeters and while I think the mental health aspect could have been explored a whole lot more, I can see why it wasn’t. The romance was slow and spicy, the angst was great, and the payoff for these two was what they needed. 

Tropes
🏒Sports/Hockey Romance
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Well February wasn’t the best reading month. I onl Well February wasn’t the best reading month. I only ended up reading 3 books in. 3 pretty fun books but one of my slowest readings months in a while. 

And I’m going to be honest here it’s because I’ve been constantly reading Heated Rivalry fanfics. 🤷‍♀️ I’m having the best time though. 

How was your reading in February? Any 5  star reads? 

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January was a really solid reading month. I read s January was a really solid reading month. I read some books that had been on my tbr for some time, reread a few things that peaked my interest. I also started a few new series. And just had a good time!

I just had a really good start to the year. While February is a little slow so far I’m looking forward to what I can pick up.

What did you read in January? Any 5-star reads? Let’s chat! 

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A couple of these are on my TBR already and some have just caught my eye and that makes me super excited to pick them up. 🖤

What are you looking forward to reading this month? Let’s chat! ✨

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