I gave this four stars three weeks ago. However, after letting the book and its ideas turn in my head for a while, I've decided to take away a star and give Divergent a solid three stars. Since I have been sitting on this review for three weeks now, my memory is a bit more fuzzy than it should be (and taking so long to review this book has nothing to do with the book itself and more to do with just how busy life has been for me). My overall memory and feeling of the book was that it was an easy and enjoyable read. It didn't have noticeable grammatical issues. The logic of the book (excluding one big hole which I'll discuss below) was fairly sound and thought provoking. The plot moved along nicely. Overall, a good read.However, there were problems with this book that I could not ignore. The biggest one of them all was the world building. Where was it? I have no idea how Chicago became the way it was. I do not know why the people of Chicago have decided to live the way they do. I also have no idea what happened... to the entire planet (outside of Chicago). These are things that I like to know. These things give me a better understanding of the people and why they act the way they do. For example, why the hell have the people of Chicago divided themselves into five main groups? And why did they choose those five traits? Is the author trying to point out that most individuals in this world are only capable of one over-whelming trait and that only a few select (the Divergent) can become more than that? It's confusing to me. I do not understand these people, and my frustration was evident through a lot of the book as I couldn't understand why most people acted the way they did. Also, I just think it's utter bullshit. I think lumping people into categories is completely ridiculous anyway (and I also think this borders along the same lines as sexism, racism, etc. etc.). It's dangerous territory. Hmmm maybe the book was written this way to show that segregating people is wrong? I will need to think on that one...Nonetheless, I find it to be unbelievably frustrating to not know the answers to these questions. In my opinion, for a dystopian (I think this novel falls into that category - still don't know enough about the government to really make that determination to be 100% fact) to do what it should do, questions like these should be answered. Otherwise, it's just another book about the basic, surfaced things in life. I don't read dystopians for that. I read dystopians to understand humanity, to understand what it's like to go through pain, to understand what horrible things humans/aliens/whatever can do to others. I don't read dystopians to read about a teenage girl falling in love with a teenage boy. I have many other novels for that.To go into further detail of why the categorization also bothered me was how the author portrayed the Erudite as being power hungry because intelligence breads evil (and selfishness) which is why Abnegation is head of the government (and this is also proved correct when Erudite actually tries to kill off Abnegation and mind controls Dauntless so they can take control of the government). So, is the author saying then that the intelligent are evil and only selfless people are good? I have a major issue with this theory. This type of thinking is dangerous. I still don't know what the author really was trying to say with this, but it will be interesting to see what happens in the next novel.There is only one other thing that I remembered I wanted to talk about. I think Roth's writing is really great despite what I have written above. In particularly, I think Roth is a really fantastic moment writer, and I'll tell you what I mean by that.I can still feel Tris' emotions and reactions moving from Abnegation to Dauntless. Hell, I feel as if that ride down the zip line from that high building or that first jump Tris made over the side of the building into the Dauntless compound are actual real memories of mine. Roth does this really well, and it's what made me love the book as much as I did. It wasn't the characters or the world... it was the situations Roth wrote about that made me want to read more.Good book. I'd recommend it to anyone who was a friend. I just hope Roth puts more world building into her next book. I will definitely be picking it up.
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