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I have a burning need to know stuff and I love asking awkward questions.

Thursday, February 12, 2015


Just Finished Reading: Divergent by Veronica Roth (FP: 2011)

16 year old Beatrice Prior is about to make the most important decision of her life. As Choosing Day approaches she needs to decide on her Faction which will define the rest of her life and her place a future society still struggling with the aftermath of the great world spanning disaster that the Faction system is supposed to address. Troubled by indecision at least her (slightly) older brother will choose to stay in Abnegation – the selfless Faction. Shockingly he decides to break with expectations and joins Erudite dedicated to knowledge and truth. Torn even more by his unexpected act Beatrice makes her choice much to the shock of everyone she knows – Dauntless dedicated to courage and the conquering of all fear. But during the first set of tests Beatrice discovers something about herself that could threaten her very life – she is one of the small percentage of those who do not fit into any neat category. Known as Divergent these individuals are spoken of in hushed tones and seen as a real danger to the existence of everything they have worked for. Forced to hide what she is, and now known as Tris, she must do her very best to master a whole new set of skills, assert herself as never before and hide her true identity from everyone around her. Meanwhile the political landscape is shifting and revolution is in the air with Dauntless at the very heart of things. It’s a bad time to be Divergent.

After enjoying the movie (so much so I bought the DVD) I was looking forward to reading the book. I was not disappointed. Considering that the author was in her early 20’s when she produced this it’s actually quite impressive. Almost word for word and scene for scene from the movie – an impressive feat in itself – the books goes into move detail about the Faction system and actually explains things that the movie glossed over. The portrayal of Tris by Shailene Woodley in the film was, I thought, pretty spot on and inevitably whenever any of the characters appeared in the book I ‘saw’ them as their movie counterparts. I didn’t detect any great jarring between the two. Aspects of the work where different and I actually thought that some parts at least are better in the movie. I thought that the author lost the plot a bit near the end (say, about 80% of the way through) and the film handled it better. The only time I found myself slightly skimming and rolling my eyes and sighing a bit (and not in a good way) was the teen romance aspects which I thought where pretty naff – borderline terrible actually. Fortunately they didn’t happen all that often and, yet again, are handled better in the movie.

Overall though I found this to be surprisingly good (I actually surprised a few of the guys at work who probably though that this sort of thing was ‘above’ me) and, despite it basically being light SF it did manage to feed my need for a while (note to self – read more real SF soon!). Obviously I’m looking forward to the sequel, Insurgent, coming out soon and intend to read the book soon after. The third book Allegiant is coming out over two years so I might end up reading that first – but who knows what my reading habits will be by then. Recommended – especially if you liked the movie.
 
[2015 Reading Challenge: A Book that became a Movie – COMPLETE (6/50)]

12 comments:

dbackdad said...

My son has this book but hasn't read it yet because he's still working on all the Game of Thrones books. I'm sure I'll read this series. Haven't seen the movie(s) yet, but they look good.

CyberKitten said...

I should think you'll both like both. 2015 is going to be a bumper year for Sci-Fi movies. Hopefully a good number of them will be decent (though I'm disappointed so far).

Stephen said...

The teenie romance is unavoidable with teeny characters and a teeny audience, I suppose. I still don't get why Divergent has this cultural awe of "DANGEROUS!" when it's only dangerous to a few people who RECENTLY created a conspiracy.

Stephen said...

Oh, speaking of movies! Are you going to see the Frankenstein movie with Daniel Radcliffe as Igor?

Mike aka MonolithTMA said...

I enjoyed the film, but didn't love it. My wife is reading the books.

My one sentence review after seeing it was "I was surprised when Katniss wasn't sorted into Gryffindor." ;^)

Mike aka MonolithTMA said...

I will definitely go see the sequel when it comes out though.

CyberKitten said...

Katniss was from Hunger Games, Tris is from Divergent. They are pretty similar though - although I think Katniss cries more...

Looking forward to the final installment of Hunger Games. I thought the last one was a bit too 'filler' for my liking. Isn't nice to see strong female characters for a change?

Stephen: Daniel Radcliffe as Igor?

I certainly missed *that* memo! It's not exactly a role I's automatically think of him in. Also not a huge fan to be honest. As to Frankenstein itself - I've been far too much impressed by the book to enjoy much of the movie adaptations.

Mike aka MonolithTMA said...

I know Katniss is from Hunger Games, I apparently failed in my joke. ;)

Just pointing out the similarities between young adult, chosen one fiction.

CyberKitten said...

[lol] Oh, indeed. Transfer each over into the other 'universe' and it wouldn't make a whole lot of difference. Buffy did it first of course... [grin]

Mike aka MonolithTMA said...

Ahh, Buffy. I miss that show, Angel too.

CyberKitten said...

I've started watching 'Fringe' on box-set. I'm hooked. 100x better than The X-Files.

Mike aka MonolithTMA said...

I never really got into X-Files, but I enjoyed what I saw of it. Haven't seen any of Fringe.