47: Divergent

Divergent
Veronica Roth
4.5 stars

This is a YA book that I've heard a lot of hype about, but hadn't gotten around to reading. A friend in the ward so highly praised it that I finally went and placed a hold on it at the library. My number came up a lot sooner than expected and I picked it up and read it in about 2 days. It's not a short book, but it is a quick read.

Divergent belongs in the category of dystopian fiction-- the world, or perhaps only the U.S., or perhaps only Chicago, IL, has presumably been through some sort of catastrophe or breaking of society as we now know it. I say this because the setting is a future Chicago and references are made to Chicago landmarks, but there's isn't mention of anywhere else or whether the same social structure exists elsewhere.

This is one of the only issues I had with the book, but it's a fairly prominent issue and one that keep the book from being, for me, fantastic. I think books in this category need to have a solid foundation. For one, I want to know more of the why and how and when and, in this case, the what, that caused the societal breakdown and eventual rebuilding. Here, there is literally nothing. Perhaps these details are addressed in the other books, but if that is so I would have liked Roth to at least hint of that. As is, it's way too conspicuously absent for my taste.

To continue with the set-up, in this future Chicago, society is divided into factions: Abnegation, Erudite, Candor, Amity, and Dauntless. After the breaking of whatever sort occurred, people divided up into these factions based on which human flaw they believed led to the downfall. E.g., members of Abnegation believe that selfishness was at the root of the downfall of society, and thus the faction now holds selflessness above all. Erudite believes that ignorance was the problem, so they value knowledge. Candor-- honesty. Amity-- peace. Dauntless-- bravery.

Each faction is responsible for certain jobs in the city, but this isn't explained super well. Most important to this discussion are Abnegation and Dauntless, which take care of volunteer work/cleaning and rebuilding, and security/protection, respectively. Truth be told, it seems that Dauntless are more or less the goths you remember from high school, mixed with some UFC and Evil Knievel. (No, really.)

Our main character is Beatrice Prior, a 16 year old girl born and raised Abnegation. The coming-of-age ceremony in this Chicago takes place at 16, when youth take an aptitude test designed to tell them which faction they truly belong in, and then make their choice of which faction they want to join. The test doesn't dictate your choice; it is merely supposed to reveal your true self. Beatrice's aptitude test yields surprising and mysterious results and for several reasons she ends up choosing to leave Abnegation and join Dauntless.

Most of the book deals with the fierce initiation process Beatrice-- now going by Tris-- goes through in the Dauntless compound. Along the way she learns more about herself, her test results, and the true inner workings of society. Things are definitely not what they seem, and it becomes clear that Tris may be one of the few who can make a difference.

I give this book 4.5 stars. I was uncertain through most of it whether I'd really love it or not, but the ending was well done and it came together for me. Although there are some glaring problems for me, I am not letting those affect my rating much because a) it was really fun to read, and b) as I said, the holes may be addressed/explained later. I'll give it a fair shake.

Some of the story was kind of predictable, but I was also taken by surprise more than once. There are some questions I have about Tris' family-- her mom especially-- that I'd really like to be answered in the following books.

The love story involving Tris is not overwhelming-- definitely not the focus of the book-- which I really appreciated, but it also wasn't as well developed as I'd have liked. I get kind of annoyed when two characters are suddenly smitten with each other and the author hasn't really given a lot of foundation. (At least in Twilight you know exactly why Edward is obsessed with Bella-- after all, she's like his own personal brand of heroin.)

This is Roth's first novel and I'm excited to read the second installment, Insurgent, as well as the third that is supposed to come out next fall.

33: A Separate Peace

A Separate Peace
John Knowles
2 stars

I finally finished this book. It took me 2 months. I just couldn't get all the way into it... and at the end, it fell sort of flat for me. I like what I think the author was trying to say, but I just don't think he made a slam dunk with this one. Which may be against the grain, because apparently this is a pretty popular book for high school English classes, though I never read it-- never even heard of it, actually, until this past summer.

This book is set at a boys' boarding school in New England during the early years of WWII. Two boys, best friends (kind of?), have a tumultuous summer punctuated with a terrible accident (or was it?), and then an even more tragic autumn. They have it rough, these boys. Everyone knows they are basically being groomed to enter the military as soon as they are of age. There is this Great War hanging over their heads, but it doesn't seem real to them. They keep hearing about it, but they don't really get it. And of course they don't. They are children. War is incomprehensible to all but the few who have seen it and lived to tell. This is the aspect of the plot I could get behind. I could feel the pressure hanging over them, and the bewilderment of not really knowing what war is, what would be expected of them, even what they were being sent off to fight and possibly die for.

Gene and Phineas are presented as best friends and polar opposites. Finny is the BMOC, the jock, the uber talented, handsome daredevil. Gene is the introverted intellectual. He does what Finny says, most of the time grudgingly. Finny thinks they genuinely like each other, but the reader is (or at least I was) left wondering what was really going on. Their friendship is never very convincing to me. It feels forced-- the author says it's so, so it is, but I wish I could have believed it. The story is told from Gene's point of view and it's clear from his inner monologue that he has some serious ill feelings towards Finny that are never fully resolved. In fact, the main conflict in the book is actually an "accident" that befalls Finny that Gene causes. When it happens, it happens because Gene, always quietly simmering in anger at Finny, suffers a momentary lapse of reason. He acts without giving a thought to what the consequences could be. A really stupid whim, in other words. This action sets off a chain of events that affect everyone.

If you read this book in high school, I'd be interested to hear what you thought of it then. If you've read it since then, I'd be even more interested to hear if you liked it. For me, I could take it or leave it. 2 stars.