The Divergent Series

I've been a bit into dystopian fiction lately, and I recently received this series for my birthday.  Now I've read that book on my Chocolate Book list that falls under Milk Chocolate!

And since lately I've had time issues anyways, I decided to review this as a series instead of book by book.  Also, uh, I tore through the books so fast (that's three 500 page books in little more than a week.  Yeah.....) that I kind of have trouble remembering where one book ends and the next book begins.  Like, did Tris know her Mom was Dauntless during or after 'Divergent'?
Anyways, let's get to it!

Oh, yeah, I should probably do a quick plot summary.

The Divergent books are set in (guess what?) the future in a wrecked Chicago.  Society is divided into five factions which are supposed to keep the city peaceful.  Children grow up in the factions of their parents and when they are 16 they go through an aptitude test which is supposed to help them decide which faction to enter.  The main character is Tris Prior, who leaves her Abnegation faction for the Dauntless.  She discovers from her aptitude test that she is Divergent, which is, she is told, very dangerous, and she must keep it a secret.  During Dauntless initiation she meets fellow Divergent Four, or Tobias.  They discover that the Erudite are planning to destroy the Abnegation faction, and then it's all down-hill from there.

I have to say, these are very fast-paced books.  Even though each book is around 500 pages long, the author doesn't ramble.  Which gives you an idea of just how much happens in these books.  The books are in the first person, which normally means you get a lot of reminiscences, but you don't get any of that.  Which completely fits with Tris' personality.  She's not the kind of dreamy eyed, rambling girl.  The last one swaps back and forth between the first-person perspectives of Tris and her boyfriend Tobias, which really confused me at first because I didn't realize that whenever the perspective swaps, a new chapter starts at the same time and under the chapter number it tells you whose perspective it is.  Silly me :P

I know I'm reviewing the
book, but visual aid anyone?

As for the characters, the characters were good, but not crazy uber good.  Tris was a very interesting character with a good story arc.  She starts out almost like a little girl at first, but during initiation she matures a lot.  During most of the second book she seesaws between trying to fight the Erudite and being depressed about all the horrors she's seen (and done).  By the end of the book she's gotten through the initial rough patches (with the help of her boyfriend of course), and her story ends with a very bittersweet, heroic ending.  And although sometimes I'm sarcastic about her having a boyfriend and how that's so typical of most modern heroines, Tris' relationship with Tobias is different from most modern boy/girl relationships.  They protect each other, and Tris is definitely not entirely dependent on him.  There are some times when Tris totally ignores Tobias' advice and what he asks her to do.  Tris makes a lot of hard choices, and while she's definitely not perfect, she does the best that she can in the tough spots she gets stuck in.

Trust me, he's not just a pretty boy

Tobias, the other main character, is also interesting, but not quite as complicated as Tris.  He has abusive parent issues that plague him and make him constantly question his self-worth.  Tris helps him to see that he is not worthless, which is another reason that their relationship is different from other guy/gal relationships: It's not just that Tris depends on Tobias; Tobias depends on Tris too.  They lean on each other for support.  Tobias was uber protective of Tris during 'Insurgent', but Tris got it through his head that she really didn't need or want protecting.  Oh, and I forgot, his nickname is Four, but I call him Tobias, because, well, that's what Tris does most of the time.

None of the other characters are really relevant enough to talk about here, maybe I'll do a post with some thoughts on them another time.

But what about the villain?

Okay, so if you've only read the first book, stop reading this post, because it contains mucha spoilers.

In the last book you find out that several generations ago after several wars the U.S. government tried to eliminate all the bad aspects of human nature by removing certain people's genetic tendencies towards a certain trait: i.e., removing the gene for cowardice, or aggressiveness, or, well, you get the idea.  The only problem that the government didn't foresee was that if you removed one genetic tendency, you also removed another and brought out an even worse one.  The people who didn't have a genetic tendency towards cowardice for example, also lost their sympathy and became ruthless.  Anyone who had been genetically altered like this was labeled Genetically Damaged.  Their memories were reset and they were placed in 'experiments' (major cities that had been devastated by previous wars) that were designed to be self-sufficient in the hopes that after a couple of centuries the genetically damaged population would become genetically pure again.  Genetically pure people were the Divergents. 

Oh, and on top of that, the government has been lying to everyone about, well, about a lot of things.  First off, the government claims that the world was all rainbows and sunshine before the genetically altered people came along, and that all previous wars were the fault of the genetically altered people.  Tris finds out that the government was lying and that there were wars before the genetically altered people came along, and that the government was just using this as an excuse to set up the experiments.  Grrr.....

Good grief this post is looooong, so I'll try to wrap it up quick.

There were very few things I didn't like about the book, one of which was Tris and Tobias' kissing so much throughout the books.  Seriously, the book stands fine on its own without all the gross stuff, okay?  Oh, and in the Epilogue, Tobias scatters Tris's ashes while zip-lining.  Really?  Why does she have to be cremated?!

The Divergent series incorporates several different issues, and I would love to give you all long speeches on all of them, but I'll save that.  Issues such as a new take on racial prejudice (Genetically damged people are treated as inferior to genetically pure), human dignity in general, and also free will.

All in all it's a really good series, and if I had to pick a favorite, it would be Allegiant.

Sorry, for this excessively long post, I don't know what got into me!