Thursday, 19 March 2015

Divergent: my review

There's probably nothing I can say about this book that hasn't been said before. First of all, I must congratulate Veronica Roth for 1) creating the perfect novel for any teenage girl and 2) making a mash-up of The Hunger Games & the Twilight sagas that works out pretty well. Let me explain.

I'm obsessed with narrators and I tend to judge the quality of a novel by how well the narrator is constructed. In Divergent the narrator is the main character, Tris. So, first person, internal monologue... I call that the "easy narrator". Also, Tris narrates in the present, not the past, which is a positive point for the author because narrating in the present tense is not as easy as it seems. So far, this is the same description for the narrator in The Hunger Games.

Curiously enough, this narrator, along with the main character is, in my opinion, very well designed: designed to be liked by any teenage girl who reads the book. All we know about the character is not too much so any girl can see herself reflected in Tris' thoughts and feelings. If she was more complexly described, she would have a too-defined personality and not every girl would agree with her decisions. Also, the fact that she narrates in the first person makes on the reader the illusion that what she/he is reading, is her/his own thoughts. Clever.


**SPOILER ALERT**


So here we have Katniss Tris, in the reaping ceremony choosing ceremony, and then leaving District 12 the Abnegation Faction to go on a one-week training course on self-defense and knife-throwing. She happens to be better than she thought... And she falls in love with a superhot guy whose chest is like rock (Edward Cullen??) and makes her go dizzy and her legs shake when he looks at her (Edward, is that you?), and he has a terrible secret about his past (I'm pretty sure, you are Edward), and although he, Edward Jacob Peeta Gale Four could have any girl he wants because he's like the perfect man, he chooses to be with Bella Katniss Tris, because you know, she's the main character of the story so he's not allowed to love anyone else.
And then Peeta & Katniss kiss under the rocks in a cave.
And then Edward & Bella kiss between some rocks in the forest.
And then Four & Tris kiss on some rocks next to a waterfall.
Aaawwwwww!!!!

The more I look, the more similarities I find between these sagas. I'd summarize it like this: Divergent= The action of The Hunger Games + The romanticism of Twilight. In 1 word: 

HORMONES!!



Read this review in Goodreads

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