Comments for Divergent

Divergent: 10/13/14

Divergent by Veronica Roth is, as am I sure you know, the first of the Divergent series. As there are already thousands of blog posts about the book and series, I'm going to veer off from my usual review formula.

The book is set in Chicago — the remains, anyway, of the city after some cataclysmic event destroyed the nation as we know it. Although there's some back story, the big explanations are left to the imagination. The city is divided up by different factions and at a certain age, teenagers are give a test which helps them decide if they stay with their birth faction or if they switch. Then there are the divergent ones and our heroine, Beatrice Prior (aka Tris) is one of them.

And I'm one of them too. See divergent was the term schools used to describe those square peg in the round hole type students. Divergent was the catch all for the students weren't special ed but weren't exactly normal ed either. I was given the divergent tag after passing the school's IQ test with flying colors (but that's a different story for a different post). At the time, I took the label "divergent" as a badge of honor. In Tris's world, it's something to hide, even if secretly she's proud of her status.

Her being different isn't quite the point of the book. Instead, it's about her learning the ropes of her newly chosen faction, Dauntless. They're the all black wearing, warrior caste, who live in some old gravel pit or something and basically take turns trying to kill each other.

The problem is, as Tris starts earning her keep and the heart of her trainer, Four, I couldn't help but find similarities between Divergent and Phineas and Ferb Beyond the Second Dimension. Tris becomes Candace and Four becomes Jeremy. Just go with it.

The sad fact is, I prefer the Phineas and Ferb movie to Divergent. But I have Insurgent and Allegiant in a lovely box set, and I do plan to read them.

Three stars

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