I know that there is a very popular series going around, the Divergent series by Veronica Roth. Due to coaxing from my sister and friends, I read the series. It took me a while, which is abnormal, but I powered through it. I was pleasantly surprised with the first book, slightly disappointed with the second book, and absolutely bored with the third book. Frankly, it was terrible. I actually wish that I could go back in time and make the wise decision to not pick it up from the library. At least I had the wisdom to not buy it. So, I will go through the series, explaining my distaste for it, starting at the beginning.
Note: do not read this review if a) you have not finished the series and want to, or b)enjoyed the series and really don’t want to hear anything bad about it. From personal experience, a negative review can ruin your positive opinion of a book. Read at your own risk!
Seriously, there are spoilers.
And I really don’t like these books. My opinion is strong.
Did I mention spoilers?
The Titles
I know that the similarities in the titles could be a “tie-in” or something like that, but I thought that the titles were just gimmicky in the first two and forced in the third. I could understand the word divergent as a title for the first book, but insurgent and allegiant just felt like they didn’t reach their full capacity for their titles. I didn’t think that the words were used in the books skillfully. “Allegiant” seemed especially forced for me. If I had been leading a rebellion, I would not have called us the Allegiant. Allies maybe, but not “allegiant”. One-word titles are hard to do, and I’ve only read two series that had good one-word titles for each book. I liked those because though the words may have been used in the books, they were more ambiguous, less this-is-a-cool-word-let’s-try-to-figure-out-how-to-fit-it-into-the-plot.
The Characters
Sometimes Tris felt like a real teenager—a real, three-dimensional person with personality, motive, and feelings. Other times, she felt like a two-dimensional version of a three-dimensional character. Oftentimes, her personality and character seemed to be suppressed because the story needed to go a certain way, not because that is what Tris, as a person, would have done.
When Tobias was introduced in Allegiant as a POV character, I often had trouble distinguishing him from Tris. He had no individuality from her. No distinguishable differences in his personality, and no defining characteristics that made me go, wow, this is a cool, new perspective. Again, Tobias seemed to do things because the plot demanded it, not because this is what he would do as a person. Tobias was not a strong Dauntless revolutionary, he was a whining fifteen-year-old girl.
The other characters of the series never seemed to become real people. They were just characters on the page whose only purpose was to be shot or die a tragic death defending Tris and Tobias. Most of those deaths were supposed to be tragic, but I was unable to be sad because I could not relate to those characters. They weren’t real to me.
Tris and Tobias didn’t EVER act like teenagers except when they were worrying if the other was interested in someone else. I would have enjoyed the books maybe slightly more if Tris had been 18 and Tobias had been 20. Tris already acts like a world-weary 20-some-year-old, and Tobias acts like a whiny twelve-year-old girl on some occasions.
The Writing Style
There was nothing sophisticated to the writing. I like a few simple sentences scattered throughout a book, but this entire book was composed of simple sentences. That would be like a piece of music that only played two notes, or sang only two words. Boring.
Also, the writing style was sometimes formulaic. For example: [insert noun] smelled like [insert smell] and [insert smell] and [insert smell]. Sometimes, I think the word “said” is overused, as are words like “asked,” “told,” “commented,” etc. These words did not come up too much, I thought, but instead, the writing went to the other extreme. There would be a sentence of dialog and then an action by the person who spoke. I like glimpses at action, but these seemed a little too forced, again. Some of the glimpses at action were completely unnecessary and I was sometimes very confused about who was talking versus who was acting.
Though I agree that there is something to say about simple vocabulary to move the speed of a novel along, I don’t think there was one word in the whole series more than three syllables.
Okay, that’s an exaggeration, but I don’t think it is too far off. There is nothing wrong with having to go to a dictionary to actually look up a word. The only words I wasn’t entirely sure of were Divergent, Insurgent, and Allegiant, but Roth conveniently explains those in the text. All in all, I was disappointed with the bland, uninteresting and yawn-inducing.
The POV
I didn’t mind the first-person POV of the first novel. In the second, I did feel a little constricted, and in the third, the decision to split the POV was very confusing. Tobias and Tris were written exactly alike. I know that Roth needed to split the POV to carry the story along, but I think she should have done Cara or Christina instead of Tobias. While Tobias either did stupid things the entire book or went and told everything to his girlfriend, Cara and Christina actually had thoughts of their own. Christina presented a very interesting perspective, as she lost her really close friend.
The Romance
As a fifteen-year-old guy, I’m not a fan of sappy romance in general. However, for being a science fiction series, I think that these books had a little too much romance. That is just my opinion, and Roth can do whatever she wants with kissing in her books.
However, I didn’t really like how Tobias handled romance in the third book. He was kind of obsessive over it. I think he thought about it too much. This is probably just an error in the author. She probably didn’t really ask any guys how they view relationships. Maybe she did, but I don’t think so.
I often wanted to skip over these scenes, but they were interspersed with “action” and “plot” so I didn’t want to miss anything.
To sum it up, the romance took away from the “plot”; it was distracting and sometimes a little annoying.
The Plot
The books have been praised for their fast-pace, and I agree. They are fast. Sometimes too fast. Under close scrutiny, the plot falls apart like a fragile house of cards.
These people are in a city with no contact with the outside world. Yup. There’s a bad government (Government is always bad in the future. We’re sunk). People are divided into factions based on aptitude tests. Okay… But some people aren’t. Because they’re “special”. There is a revolution. Understandable. People die. Yes, that happens in war. Things change. Good.
When reading the first two books I was very interested in why they were in the city. Massive nuclear war? Totalitarian government somewhere else in the world? Crime? Alien invasion? And then I read the ending of the second book and was like: what…? It really didn’t make much sense, and I thought that the ending was rushed.
And then I read Allegiant. Frankly, the book was horrible. There were just so many things wrong with it. The plot fell apart as if someone drove a semi-truck into that fragile house of cards. The revelation that the city was a science experiment was just strange and completely unbelievable. (Yes it is science fiction, which is not always believable, but science fiction needs to have realistic science in it.)
There was no realism to that science experiment. There was no control or constant. It was just a bunch of “scientists” sitting down and going, “uh, how ‘bout we put them in a city…without the good genes…somehow they…uh…might mutate back to the pure genes…and then we’ll send out the only pure genes to us. Yeah, good talk.”
By isolating the mutation that they wished to eradicate, the scientists eliminated the chance of ever getting rid of the impure genes. They cut it off completely from the pure genes, separating the variables in a really bad way.
And that’s with accepting the fact that you don’t need eight generations for a gene mutation to be present. Look at a kid and his parents. Say his parents have brown eyes (dominant) and blue eyes (recessive). The kid could have either brown or blue eyes. Even if he does have brown eyes, it will not take eight generations for blue eyes to present themselves in his family. And even more mutations of eye color will be introduced throughout more marriages. It would be the same with those mutated genes. Breeding the mutated genes would not produce healthy genes. They would produce more horribly mutated genes.
Another point. They were in the city for two hundred years. I’ve noticed that often when telling stories, we add in hundreds of years to backstories as if they mean nothing. Our country is two hundred and forty years old give or take.
Then there was the whole thing about resetting the “experiments”. Seriously, haven’t you considered that this is a waste of your time? No, let’s just wipe out all of our mediocre work and start at the beginning again. Another two hundred years of sipping coffee and watching people sort themselves into groups.
But wait, there’s a magic potion—I mean, serum—to fix every problem. They should bottle those things and sell them. They’d make loads of money.
All in all, the plot was loose. But Roth has a chance to save herself. If the ending of the series is good, then I can eat my words for the most part and accept the books for what they will be: mediocre.
The Ending
Sigh. I spoke to soon.
Okay, I have a confession to make. I knew that Tris was going to die. Before I thought I would read the series, I looked up the ending. When I started to read the series, I was like, no, she has to die? And then I got further, and I was like, when is this going to end? Let’s do it already.
Honestly, there’s nothing special about Tris. She’s just a girl who’s “divergent” (which actually means nothing) and happens to be part of a revolution. She’s just like Marlene, or Lynn, those poor girls who were killed before they were developed. So, I was interested. It made sense that the protagonist would not make it out. I don’t always like it when the protagonist unrealistically is saved at the last minute. I will make an exception for Tolkien, however, because he’s just awesome.
Okay, so I was glad that Tris had to die. I know that makes me sound like a horrible person. Sorry. Seriously, basically every other important character dies. Why not her?
But anyway, when I read it, I was disappointed.
First of all, the premise of her death was disappointing. Everyone in the city’s going to die because of fanatical Evelyn. So let’s wipe out their memories! Smart! No, it’s wrong to wipe out an entire population’s memories. So let’s wipe your memories. That will fix out problems.
The suggestion is bad, and it is worse coming from Abnegation-Tris’s mouth. Thank goodness some of the characters had misgivings, but how come Tris is suddenly the one making all of the decisions? Her judgment is clearly clouded by a newfound immaturity.
There is a distinction between sacrifice and suicide. The mission to the serum room was a suicide mission, not a sacrificial mission. There were other options besides suicide. The ending seemed forced and impersonal.
But the ending was not without its good parts. I liked that Tris died. That was the only way it could have ended. I also did like how she did not die in a blaze of glory and sacrifice: she did not dramatically throw herself in front of a bullet (or, worse, a knife) flying towards her beloved. Haven’t seen that before. Her death was stupid and an ugly coincidence, just like in real war. However, I wish that she could have actually failed in her mission.
Tobias’s perspectives at the end were kind of boring, especially all those short little chapters. I
Conclusion
I would not recommend this series to anyone. I did not enjoy it, except for the part when Tris was drunk on peace serum. I chuckled at that part. I feel like this could have been an amazing series, with a different backstory. It started out okay, but then went downhill fast. I think that with a new edition and many revisions, it could rise out of mediocrity and into the “good” category, but until that happens, I am standing firm.
If you have different views, please let me know in the comment section below! If you can convince me, I’ll eat my words.
