Review Detail

This book had very good action, and I liked how the prose was effective without drawing too much attention to itself.

With that said, I never felt like I was fully invested in the book. I read the first 100 pages online, and only decided to read the rest because I was somewhat curious to see what would happen.

This book required too much suspension of disbelief. The very idea of "factions" is more of a crazy "what if?" than a critique of society as it really exists. Some people claim that this book criticizes society's obsession with labels and categorizing people. In my experience, however, society DOESN'T have an obsession with labels. On the contrary, it's fiction writers who have a tendency to put people into boxes. Take high school cliques: In fiction, you have your jocks, snobby cheerleaders, nerds, goths, burnouts, etc. These easily defined cliques do not actually exist in the real world.


***spoilers below***

A lot of the events of the book felt contrived. For example, I didn't buy Al's sudden transformation. Out of all of the Dauntless initiates, I found him to be the bravest. Take the part where he was cheering on Christina, or the times when he'd purposefully lose a fight so as not to hurt anyone else--he stood by his principles, even though he knew he would risk becoming factionless. I found it impossible to believe that he would team up with Peter and risk hurting Tris just because of a few nightmares.

I also thought that the use of technology destroyed any potential this book could have had. Being able to overcome your fears in what you know is a virtual reality simulation is NOT character development. Nor does it draw the reader in, because we know it's not real. Aside from that, I felt that Beatrice's "divergence" was nothing more than a handy gimmick given to her and a select few other characters. (Yes, I know it's supposed to be because "Abnegation are strong-willed," but honestly, Beatrice's ability to beat simulations and avoid mind control just felt like a cheap trick.)

And seriously, how does having a flexible personality relate to having stronger willpower? That just doesn't make sense.

Also, the villains felt far too one-dimensional. Most of them are either power-hungry maniacs or complete sociopaths.