Review Detail

I enjoyed Divergent. I really did. The way the author wrote and approached her story was fresh. I loved her take on a futuristic, dystopian society in which everyone lived according to their philosophical views. However, I felt like the author was… well, I felt like she left out on some things, and that the details weren’t fully fleshed out. It’s like building up something, then leaving it with just the structure, and no decoration. It works, but it feels a little empty. Was I the only one who felt a little lost and confused upon finishing this book?

First, the mirror. Maybe this is just me, and I’m just too nit-picky. But I did recall that Trish wasn’t supposed to be vain. Thus she doesn’t look into the mirror unless she’s cutting her hair. But why would she look into the mirror if she wasn’t supposed to be vain? Why would she care about the final look unless she was at least the slightest bit vain, which her faction doesn’t allow?

What do the factions do? We’re told that Abnegation runs the government. Okay. What about the others? Does those of the Amity just sit around all day? Do the Dauntless just… jump off buildings and fight each other all day? Do the Erudite really just sit with their faces glued to the computer for the rest of their lives? What happens? What do they do? Honestly, I have no clue.

Why are the sorted into factions, anyways? What happened that made them all break off into groups based on their philosophical views? The story only slightly brushed this topic, and I still have no clue of the back-story to this. Why is this world the way it is? Why are there factions? What happened? Who decided on it? To this, I don’t have an answer, either.

What about the train? Where does it go? Who runs it? Why is it there? Nothing’s really explained. With the train, it’s just kind of… there. You don’t know why – it’s just there. It’s just this train that happens to conveniently be there for the Dauntless to ride and jump off of, and then it continues to the magical land of ‘It’s Here For The Characters’ Convenience.’ And the girl – the first girl to jump when they’re heading to the Dauntless headquarters. No one’s there to catch her. How does she land?

The overall structure and planning that comes with this story has holes in it. Large, gaping holes that, evidently, the author didn’t bother fixing. Large, gaping holes that are now filled with question marks.

And, of course, a story’s never complete without our heroine falling in love. So that’s where Four comes in. Sexy, bad-ass, but *gasps* he has a totally soft, vulnerable heart with a wall built around it, closing himself off from the rest of the world – a result of childhood abuse. A good-looking, tough guy with a soft heart. And, of course, they’re both infatuated with each other. Here’s where I can bring in the cookie cutters, and show you countless other YA books with the exact. Same. Romance. Story-line.

Needless to say, Divergent was a major disappointment for me. I did enjoy some parts of it, namely the action scenes and how Tris didn’t double back immediately after each punch. You don’t know how many times I’ve seen that sort of thing happen in books – the main character just doubles back after being punched in the gut, as if she/he’s perfectly okay. That sort of thing really hurts though, and I’m glad the author took that into account. It made everything seem all the more intense and real. However, with only a half-built world, cookie-cutter characters and an infatuation between two characters that made me grimace, this really wasn’t the book for me.