Divergent by Veronica Roth

Originally Posted to GoodReads: September 21, 2013

I had honestly forgotten I'd wanted to borrow my sister's copy of Divergent until she came into my room and handed it to me. I didn't even start reading it right away. I was, after all, in the middle of two other books. However, once I started Divergent, I couldn't put it down. Divergent took me three nights to read. Not because it's short, but because the pull of the story made it hard to stop reading.

But here's the thing, I never became emotionally invested in any of the characters. If I'm not emotionally invested, then I don't usually keep reading. This time I was much more interested what was going on in the wider world of Divergent than any of the character drama. The tiny bits we got were intriguing. I wanted more. I didn't get it. I'm going to blame that on Tris. She wasn't nearly as curious or intuitive as she should have been as a main character. She's isolated, confused, and reacts more than acts throughout the entire book.

It really bugs me, now I think about it, that I have no emotional bonds with any of the characters. Emotional bonds are what usually keep me reading a book or watching something. It's what I tend to focus on while reviewing, too. But I have nothing to say about any of the characters of Divergent or what happened to them. I am ambivalent to them all, even, and perhaps most disappointingly, Tris. I should care about the main character and I don't. That signals a problem.

I am now going to talk about the end of Divergent, because it above all else bugs me. The story had finally started to pick up. There was actual tension going on. And then it just stopped. There were some speculations on Tris' part as to what the next step would be and she expressed uneasiness about her situation and the people she was in it with. And then it just stops. There isn't an actual resolution. There aren't any mysteries solved. Just nothing. Done. Huh?

The copy of Divergent I was reading had a chunk of the next book, Insurgent, in the back. I took a peek at it and, well, it picks up directly where Divergent left off. It's like someone had taken a larger book and chopped through the spine only to recover both halves as different books. Again: Huh?

My recommendation, if you are at all interested in reading Divergent is to have Insurgent on hand. I'm not even sure if it's out yet, to tell the truth. I also don't really care at this point. I most likely won't be picking up Insurgent. Divergent just didn't grab me like it should have. Yes, I finished it quickly, but that had more to do with the pacing than anything else.