Blogging full time. Got the laptop back. Finished two books this weekend. Went to Barnes and Noble and picked up a few more yesterday. I decided to blog about Divergent this week, and next week I'll feature Blink by Malcolm Gladwell. I feel like Divergent has been prominently featured on book shelves since it debuted in February. I've picked it up multiple times and thought A) this sounds like The Hunger Games and B) I simply wasn't that intrigued by the description. After a friend suggested the book and asked multiple times if I read it, I decided to give it a shot.
The premise: the country is divided into five states, or factions. Each faction is dedicated to a specific virtue: the honest, the selfless, the brave, the peaceful, and the intelligent. Each year, all sixteen year olds must choose a faction to live in for the rest of their lives, sometimes choosing to abandon their family forever. The main character, Beatrice, is a small girl from the faction of the selfless. She chooses a faction and goes through the initiation process, which is more complicated than you would think. Beatrice is unique and different from a majority of the population, a trait that she knows makes her dangerous, but she doesn't know why. And at the same time, a growing conflict is emerging.
The layout of the story is eerily similar to The Hunger Games. The choice of faction happens fairly quickly, as did the selection of kids for the hunger games. The majority of the story is the initiation process, as the major of the story was the hunger games. The endings happen really quickly, and they are basically the same idea (sorry if that is a spoiler). And to top it all off, there is the meddling romance that carries throughout the story.
I actually thought the first 300 pages were incredible entertaining and enjoyable. The idea of having to pick a virtue for the rest of your life and live it is neat to think about. You never knew what was coming with the next stage of the initiation. My three complaints would be that it was too similar to The Hunger Games, that is wasn't all that believable, and that it was fairly predictable at the end. There's a lot of injections, mind games, simulations, and mind control. That's a bit too sci-fi for me.
The second book is called Insurgent, and it was announced this past week that the third book will be called Allegiant and is being released October 22nd of this year. Debating if I will read them or not. Also, movie rights have already been bought. The first movie will debut in March 2014.
My rating for Divergent: 3.5 stars out of 5. Get it here!
P.S. While I'm mentioning future books, Nicholas Sparks has a new one coming out September 17th called The Longest Ride. I'm going to read it, but after reading the description, I don't think I'm going to like it.
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