"We are not the same. But we are, somehow, one"

3 Mar 2014

Divergent Series Review.


If you're an avid reader of my blog, you have probably gathered that I've been reading the Divergent series and I've absolutely loved all 3 of the books in the series.

I've already, in a recently read post, explained the back ground to the first book: Divergent but for those of who haven't seen that post here is the back story.

It's set in Chicago and the people living there live in different factions: Candor (the honest), Abnegation (the selfless), Dauntless (the brave), Amity (the peaceful), and Erudite (the intelligent). The main character Beatrice who later becomes known as Tris is born into the Abnegation Faction where they are selfless and aren't allowed to do things as simple as looking in a mirror. Divergent starts on Choosing Day which is where every child who has reached 16 can choose whether to stay with the faction they belong with or change to another faction. To help them decide what to do, they are put in to some sort of simulation where it can eliminate all possible choices apart from one and that last one should the one you choose. However, it doesn't go as simply for Beatrice who's results become inconclusive which she becomes what is known as Divergent. I wouldn't count this as a spoiler because it happens so early on but she ends up choosing Dauntless which I the complete opposite to Abnegation. She has to adapt to this new life and learn how to live like Dauntless. When I'd finished Divergent, for a first book in the series, I thought it was great but a downer was that a lot of the other factions weren't really explained and it would've been nice to see how the other factions lived but I could tell that we would be able to explore them more in the next book which was insurgent.

Now this is where trying to avoid spoilers is going to be tricky, and hopefully you won't mind the few that I mention. I'll try to avoid them as best I can but in order to talk about some of the things in Insurgent, I'm going to have to talk about a few of the things that happened in Divergent so if you're very anti-spoiler I would stop right now, read the first one and come back!

Insurgent picks up where Divergent left off- where Tris and Tobias have kind of defeated Erudite and there's chaos going on. Tris gets to visit all this different factions so it's great to have been able to get out of the book what I wanted to that I was questioning at the end of the first. It is really interesting to see the way people live in the different factions and how different each faction is. Throughout the book they travel from faction to faction and even back to some so it can be quite difficult to keep up with everything that's going on. Of course Four is as amazing and ever and him and Tris hit some bumps in the road during this book and it's more than once. This aspect of the book did get quite repetitive at times but it didn't bother me enough to roll my eyes and think "Not again!". The book is full of characters and at times I found there was too many to keep up with and one of my dislikes towards a book is when multiple characters and I found myself trying to remember which character is which. However, because the book is full of different characters, it keeps the book alive even if they keep dying before you can really get to know them! Even though this book is quite sad as there's lots of people dying there's some very lighthearted scenes and it kind of helps you to remember that most of these people of still 16/17. One of my favourite aspects to the book is the slight sense of humour in sarcasm and I found myself giggling a quite a few times throughout this book. One thing I haven't really explained is that if you aren't accepted by your chosen faction you become factionless which isn't really mentioned in Divergent and is mentioned more in Insurgent. The factionless element to the book doesn't really interest me that much as other parts and I can't pin point why that is other than it just being me. They still don't mention anything about the world beyond Chicago and , when finishing Insurgent I knew that would be one of the key elements to the final book; Allegiant.

The same applies to this; if you hate spoilers, come back when you've read it! Allegiant was an amazing ending to the trilogy. I have to say that the ending was not what I or probably anybody wanted and I think Veronica Roth was very brave but (I've got to say it) stupid for ending this book the way she did because I don't know about you but I love a happy ending and, as a reader, you invest so much time into a character and a book for it not to end how you want it to is just a pain. I read to escape reality so even if an ending isn't realistic I don't really care as long as the ending is a happy one! On a slightly more positive note, I did like that we got to see Tobias' point of view. In Allegiant you start to see a war start to build and you also see people start to leave the city to see what is outside the fence and of course Tris is one of those. You learn about why Chicago is fenced in and the history of Chicago and other places in the US. I found this interesting to see and it's something I questioned throughout the whole trilogy. I do think this rounded the series up well and, even though I kind of went off on one about the ending, I still loved the end as it wasn't all bad and it manged to tie up most loose ends well and overall a good ending to the series.

This is one of my favourite Dystopian series and I probably liked and could relate to it more than the Hunger Games trilogy. This is coming out into a move later this year and I can't wait. I, of course, recommend you to read this trilogy and if you've already read it let me know if you agree with me on the ending!
Hope you're doing great, 

2 comments

  1. I need to get the last book still, I found out what happens though (well I kind of guessed and my friends face completely gave it away!) But I need to read it so bad, I an't wait to finally buy it!x

    libbyjade26.blogspot.co.uk

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    1. If you've read the first two then you have to finish the series!
      Also if you're a book lover, maybe check out the Book Lovers Tag I created!
      Sarah x

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