I’m sure everyone who is reading that post title is
thinking: Whaaat?! I know I’m in the minority for disliking Divergent, but
after a re-read, I stopped liking this book altogether.
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| My rating: 2 stars |
A year or so ago, I picked up a copy of Divergent, due to
the huge hype surrounding the novel. I devoured the book in less than two days,
enticed by the world Roth had created. Needless to say, I loved Divergent to
bits.
Recently, I decided to pick the book up again for a reread,
and was astonished to find that I didn't love the book as much as I did before.
My opinion of Divergent lowered drastically as I began to notice the flaws in
the book.
My theory for why I ceased loving this book is as simple as
this; I've read better dystopians, ones which are much more deserving of praise
than Divergent. My eyes have opened and I have been exposed to books that
represent the dystopian genre more accurately than Divergent.
Divergent is known for its gritty action scenes and just the
overall thrill-ride experience. I appreciate this, I really do, but other than
that, it doesn't have much going for it. A dystopia has to have more than action, action, and more action. In my opinion, the fact that it was
labeled “dystopia” did it more harm than good, as opposed to it being labeled a
thriller/action book. It doesn't quite live up to the greatness of this genre,
unfortunately. I would even go so far to say that it is a bit shallow in its
portrayal of a dystopian society.
My first issue is that there is minimal world-building. We
aren't given vivid descriptions of Tris’s world; I don’t know exactly how the
dauntless compound looks. How can this be deemed as dystopia when it doesn't contain
the basics—otherwise known as world building?
Another issue I had was the lack of a back-story. Roth just
told us how things were; she didn’t bother to even allude to how this society
came to be.
What probably frustrated me the most was the whole “factions
based on personality/skills” deal. Putting it mildly, it didn't make sense. I
mean, it would make sense for a society like that to arise if we had a problem
like that in our society in the present day, but the fact of the matter is, we
don’t. No one goes into conflicts based on their skills; it would actually make more sense if they were divided based on race or religion, which are actual problems presently. The idea of the Divergent society is very far-fetched. Which ties into my previous point; if we had a back-story, it would
actually make sense.
As a reader, my standards for a book have become much stricter
over time, and I have come to expect a lot more from my books. Divergent disappointed
me and didn't have much depth to it, and I really believe this book is
over-hyped.