I actually read this book a while back but I wanted to watch the movie before I wrote about it in this blog.
This book is about a world ruled by factions: Abnegation (selflessness), Candor (truth), Amity (peacefulness), Erudite (intellect), and Dauntless (bravery). Beatrice Prior has been raised all her life as Abnegation but has never felt like she belonged, not like her parents or her brother. Now that she is 16, she must take the aptitude test that will determine which faction she truly belongs to. However, her results, instead of making things easy for her, make her decision more difficult because they show her as being compatible for Abnegation, Erudite, AND Dauntless, making her Divergent. When the day to decide comes, Beatrice decides to join Dauntless and leave her family behind. But things aren’t any easier in her faction. She has to go through rigorous training and trials and if she doesn’t pass, she will become one of the Factionless. As she learns what it means to truly be Dauntless and what it means to be Divergent, she uncovers a sinister plot that could threaten the faction system completely.
Okay so it was really hard for me to do a summary of this novel without giving everything away (although you’ve probably read or watched the movie already). The novel itself was pretty good, similar to the Hunger Games in both the adventure and appeal factor. It was well written and not choppy, which is always a hard thing to avoid when writing books that include character growth as well as adventure.
The movie was really really…. Not good. The main actress did not do a good job at portraying the character of Tris as she appeared in the book (though this doesn’t mean that the actress isn’t a good one); she lacked that burst of emotion and seemed very….bland. The action scenes were cool but everything seemed to be revealed too easily. I usually prefer the books to the movies and in this case, I recommend not watching the movie at all or at least reading the book before watching it.
Happy reading ~