Review Detail

Put simply: I love this book. I stayed up way too early in to the morning to finish it, I reread it obsessively for the entire summer, I recommended it to all my friends, and I have been dying to get my hands on the sequel.

That said, I feel like my rating for this book should be a little higher, but I cannot honestly give a better rating with the criteria YABC requires me to grade a book by. So let me explain.

The writing style. It really was not anything special. Just a normal, first person POV. It doesn't warrant a five-star rating for writing style, nor do I want to bring my overall rating lower by giving it three stars. Therefore, four stars it is.

Characters. Beatrice, or Tris, as she renames herself, is an amazing, brave character. Not fearless of course, but she's also not afraid of her fears. She's gutsy, but constantly underrated, and she's nowhere near perfect. While I really loved Tris, I would find it perfectly understandable if anybody wasn't too fond of her as a character. Oh, and Four (who, yes, is a character) is awesome. I don't know how else to put it; he's brave, kind of angry, mysterious (well, maybe he's mysterious; it took about a minute for me to guess his "secret" sort of thing), and I love the relationship that blooms between him and Tris - nothing TOO sudden (read: they do not fall in love with each other as soon as they look at each other), but complicated and passionate and, overall, unique. So why did I take one star off for characters? There's just not enough of everyone else. The minor characters feel either one-dimensional, or they're not given enough screen time for me to totally care. I felt like I should've cried at one point in this book (don't ask, this is spoiler-free!), but I didn't know anything or have any reason to feel like Tris did at that moment.


And finally, plot. A lot of YA books these days are very taken over by the romance aspect, even though blurbs and summaries advertise otherwise. This is not one of those books that makes the romance the main point, nor does it seem like the romance is simply a subplot. It's too front and center to be a subplot, but it cannot be considered the main plot, either. There is a very fine balance between the romance and the overall plot, one that I very much enjoyed. Aside from the romance, the plot was intense, exciting, adventurous, fun... barely a dull or calm moment. Veronica Roth is great at intricate world-building. It might start off a bit slow, but that is purposeful. Afterwards, you feel everything Tris does - fear, excitement, indignation, bravery. The book focuses mainly on three of the factions (Abnegation, or selflessness; Dauntless, or bravery; and Erudite, or intelligent), leaving out the other two. This is a good thing, because you are not overwhelmed and it leaves much more room to build on the intricacy and complexities of each of the three factions that are focused on. The other two could be explored in the next book (because yes, this is another trilogy). Conclusion: Awesome, action-packed book that leaves you always wanting to know what happens next and impossible to put down.

I highly recommend this book for people who like: dystopian, romance, adventure, action, YA books in general.

Also, isn't the cover awesome? :)