Book Review for the Books Divergent and Insurgent by Veronica Roth

Perhaps my review of this will be a little biased because I have always been fascinated by books about utopian/dystopian societies. I love Fahrenheit 451, The Giver, The Hunger Games trilogy, and, though I didn't really like them, I still thought 1984 and Brave New World were very interesting.

I guess I will start by saying, I read both of the books (both around 500 pages) in a little over a week, so I obviously enjoyed them. They were exciting and were hard to put down. At the same time, they were definitely not as good as The Giver, Fahrenheit 451, or even the Hunger Games Trilogy. It's hard to describe why, exactly, other than to say they didn't make me feel as deeply and didn't make me pause to think as much. Also, at times, the quality of writing and choice of words wasn't as excellent as the aforementioned books.

I just realized that perhaps one reason I didn't love the books is because I didn't feel the society was entirely believable, I don't feel society can be put into merely 5 factions...but I suppose the fact that it is beginning to fall apart in the books shows the author does not think it can be divided as such either, at least not for long.

One thing which was nice is there was not really a triangle of love, as appears to often happen in recent books written for this age group.

What are the books about? They are about a damaged “faction” (not really a class or caste system, because one is not necessarily above another) based society in which members take an aptitude test at 16 to help them choose which faction they will join. They then must go through an initiation process. Some do not make it through initiation and become one of the “Factionless,” the outcasts and, if they do have a job, it is a job no one else wants. Some die during the initiation process, especially in the faction of Dauntless, which one of the main characters chooses to join.

The books are about discovering who you are, what you are made of, learning to face your fears, the difference between bravery and stupidity, selflessness and a sick sense of atoning for your wrongs by putting yourself at risk and allowing yourself to be hurt. They are about friendship and love, learning to trust and realizing people are more complex than they seem. They are about a perceived threat and how it can motivate people to act in different ways, cause them to betray those they love for what they view as the right course. They are about the question concerning “the greater good” versus the value of a life. They are about truth and information, how some think it best to “protect” people by keeping them in ignorance and some think people should know those secrets which can break apart your life and make the world a scary place.

Are they worth reading? Yes. Are they favorite? No. Am I looking forward to when the third one is coming out and will I re-read the first two before it does (it should be out the end of 2013)? Yes. Also, the fact that the author is only like 23 and wrote most or all of the first novel while in college is pretty amazing.

What would I rate them? PG-13 for violence, disturbing situations, some smooching, and a little language. Though there is a lot of violence, I would still say it's a step down from the Hunger Games books. There's nothing quite as gruesome as the Tracker-Jack scene or the Dogs-with-the-human-eyes (by the way, the movie tamed both of those scences down).

Side-note: In Insurgent there are a couple blatant inconsistencies which, unfortunately made it past the author, the editors, and the beta readers. The author is, of course, now aware of them and I'm sure will change them in future printings, but for now...you can have fun by finding them yourself. So you won't drive yourself crazy through the whole thing, they are near the end.

A Song of Ice and Fire or, as I think they are more commonly known, A Game of Thrones

I have now read the first 4 books of this series and am waiting to get the next one from the library.

Somewhere I read a book critic who compared these books to The Lord of the Rings and, I have to say, I was a little offended. The LOTR world is black and white, good and bad, the heroes are noble and the villains are evil. That is not to say the characters are one-dimensional, that the heroes do not fail in their courage and the villains are devoid of goodness; but you can tell the heroes and the villains apart, you can fall in love with a character and root for them wholeheartedly. The world within A Song of Ice and Fire is made of black and white and gray, splattered with blood and semen. Forgive my imagery, but I think it is a fairly accurate description.

These books are brutal, filled with pillaging in every sense of the word. There is rape, incest, torture, murder, horrible betrayals, language, greed, lust, and crude humor. One of the characters says something along the lines of, after a while, war makes man forget he is human, that is the only way to explain some of the actions of various characters. That, or George R. R. Martin has a lower view of humanity than I. I suppose that's not fair, everything his characters do are things which are done by people in reality, whether in war or not; it just seems the predonerance of his characters do dispicable things. It is hard to know who the heroes are, it is hard to cheer for them; and it is hard to know who the villains are, it is hard to wish them ill.

Yet another reason not to like these books, and this may only bother me, is that there are so many different “main characters” and each chapter follows one character at a time. Potentially there can be a few hunderd pages between meeting up with a character again. This, combined with Martin's tendency to kill off characters, change their name, and continuly introduce new characters, makes it hard to keep up with everything. There were a few times I had to flip back to find out where I had left a character and a few chapters where I had to read a couple pages in order to remember who the character even was.

After all of that you may justly wonder, why do I read them? Well, first I will say, these are not books I ever plan to own and I will probably never read them again. Then why do I read them? I hint at it at the end of the paragraph above my last, Martin has created some of the most complex characters in literature. There are some so seemingly merciless, silly, and sadistic you almost wish to skip the chapters related to them and look forward to a time when they may be killed off. Then there are others you hated but then they grow as a person and so you come to like them, some you pitied but then begin to loathe because of their blind quest for vengence. I will say Martin is like Tolkien in that they both place great importance on character development. They are also alike in their thouroughness, they manage to create very believable worlds, though both have elements of fantasy (this is also to say, Martin is somewhat long-winded, like Tolkien).

I also read them because the author is a great storyteller, he draws you in, even if the world he draws you into is full of shadows, blood, and tears. Perhaps this is just because “winter is coming,” perhaps the world will change into a brighter place with the coming of the spring.

I would without a question rate these books rated “R” and perhaps even suggest an “NC-17.”