I was told that this book was “The next Hunger Games!” which immediately made me skeptical. I do not want
to read the “new” Hunger Games, I’ll
just read THE Hunger Games eight more
times thankyouverymuch. AND since I was told it was “the next Hunger Games,”
obviously I had to compare it to The
Hunger Games every moment I could.
The story starts with sixteen-year-old Beatrice (Tris) Prior
who lives with her family in post-apocalyptic Chicago. Their city has been
divided into five six factions: Candor (the honest), Abnegation (the
selfless), Dauntless (the brave), Amity (the peaceful), Erudite (the
intelligent), and the Factionless (the outcasts). At sixteen, Beatrice gets to
decide what faction to choose to live her life in. Once she has chosen, there
is no going back, and if she chooses Not Abnegation, then she will leave her
family forever (except for visiting days). So naturally there’s a test where
the kid goes on an LSD-trip-spirit-journey to figure out where they are Meant
To Be, but Beatrice is Different Than Everyone Else. And thus our story starts.
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| Beatrice vs. Katniss: the film actresses |
Similarities to The Hunger Games:
-dystopian world where people are sorted
-Book 1 (Divergent) will be consumed in a 24-72 hour period,
depending on how much time you have on your hands.
-you must immediately begin Book 2 (Insurgent/Catching Fire)
upon finishing Book 1 (Divergent/The Hunger Games) AND even more pressing is
the need to read the third book (Allegiant/Mockingjay)
-The third book is the worst, but you realize that that is
the only way to end the series. Mockingjay was a struggle because I read it in
one sitting, and the end felt disjointed (you know why if you’ve read it), I had
the same problem with Harry Potter and
the Deathly Hallows (Book 7) because I wanted to know WHAT WAS GOING TO
HAPPEN as opposed to what the characters were thinking and feeling. In HP, I
felt like they were stuck in that tent in the woods for ETERNITY. On the second
read of both Mockingjay and HP7, everything made sense and felt Right.
Allegiant took me two weeks to read. There was a lot of things I wanted to
happen in Insurgent that then were fixed in Allegiant, but then…I got bored. And
the end…
Differences from The Hunger Games:
-In Divergent, the city-state is divided into factions, as
opposed to The Hunger Games, where the country of Panem was split into
districts. Factions are divided by a personality trait, and jobs are given
based on that trait, as opposed to The
Hunger Games where the country was divided based on industry
-no love triangle (HOLD THE PHONES, WHAT?! A YA book with no
love triangle????). Yes, really.
-By Book 3 Tris actually has a real relationship with a
boyfriend where they talk and work through things instead of breaking up at
every freakout like teenagers (which I appreciated)
-Tris actually cares about her relationship unlike Katniss
who is a badass and is really confused why everyone’s worried about who her
boyfriend is when she’s seventeen and the face of a rebellion, which is one of
my favorite things about The Hunger Games
series, because it’s a discussion with the reader. Why do you care about who your boyfriend is? Does it matter? You
could be solving world hunger. I’m not saying its not ok to have a boyfriend, I
have a boyfriend. I like my boyfriend. But I don’t like him because he’s my
boyfriend, he’s my boyfriend because I like him. In high school (and after…), I
feel like there can be pressure on girls to Have A Boyfriend, and that’s not
really healthy. I’m totally getting on a tangent but to wrap it up, in the Divergent series Tris actually learns
how to communicate within a relationship, and is still a badass, and that is
awesome too. Things can be different and still awesome.
-In Divergent, once the rebellion starts, war is happening
basically all the time, as opposed to the Boy Troubles/Normal Life à The Games/War conceit
that is in a lot of YA (also see Harry
Potter: Happy Magic School à
oh it’s halfway through the book, time to fight Voldemort!)
THE VERDICT
I read these books in JANUARY and haven’t posted this because
I had too many thoughts on the books, and my main problem with them is that
they are NOT
The Hunger Games, which
isn’t REALLY a fair assessment. A friend of mine likes them better because it
presents war in a more realistic light. I think the most fair thing to say
about the books is that they are clearly a reaction to
The Hunger Games, but I wouldn’t say that it talks about as many
things as
The Hunger Games does. Where
Collins is discussing war, the media, and how women are viewed. (You can read a
super smart interview with her
here.)
Roth seems to have a Strong Female Character dealing with war and rebellion. And
while I think that
Divergent is
extremely entertaining, I’m not sure that I would get much more out of it on a
second or third read. So I have to say that is DEFINITELY worth reading but NOT
as good as
The Hunger Games, but I
love
The Hunger Games too much to
give anything but a biased verdict.
POSSIBLY one day I’ll read it again or see the movie and
realize how brilliant it is.
If you didn’t like The
Hunger Games, DON’T read it. If you loved Divergent, tell me about how wrong I am and what brilliance I’m missing.
