Welcome to the second Nerdy Bitches Book Club: The Divergent Series by Veronica Roth! We decided not to cover just one at a time, but all three books at once, so we are talking super spoilers here!! We are covering the BOOKS, not the movies.
So, here we go!! We would love your feedback on our opinions, as well as your own, so you can always e-mail us.
Book 1: Divergent: We learn about the different factions that exist in this society, and how they came to be. Each of the factions has their good point, but of course will all have a downfall. The main character, Beatrice/Tris, begins in Abnegation and chooses to move into Dauntless during her choosing ceremony. Once the kids choose their new faction, they have to prove themselves worthy, or risk becoming “factionless.” Liz: Dauntless or Candor; Heather: Candor. We pretty much think that most people would really be Divergent. We were completely blown away about the Factions Before Family theme. Every faction had both good and bad leaders. Also, each faction has their own serum for controlling their people, overcoming fear, and the super evil shit serum. Lots of good action in this book. We love Four/Tobias in this book and his training of Tris throughout the story. It was a little stupid that people had no idea that Four was Marcus’s son and the only other one to leave Abnegation. The plot holes are pretty deep. Anyways, the Erudite uses the serum on Dauntless and has them take out a bunch of people. Tris kills Will and then becomes completely fucking worthless.
Book 2: Insurgent: This is the aftermath of the Erudite takeover. We start to find out that they are hiding a lot from everyone else. We also learn more and more about the Factionless and how many there really are, including Four’s mother, who was supposed to be dead. Four kicks some major ass throughout this book, but he does become obnoxiously protective of Tris and keeps telling her that she is being reckless. Tris is Abnegation AND Dauntless… of COURSE she is going to be both selfless and brave. And Tris’s piece of shit brother, Caleb! OMG!! He totally strapped her to the table to be murdered! Douchenozzle. Not only did he betray his sister, he also betrayed his parents and is basically the reason they are dead! We would have shot him in the head ourselves. The ending of this book was pretty good. They killed off Jeanine and that would have been the end… except then we had to show that damn Edith Prior video. This is the curse of the trilogy. We blame you, Stephanie Meyer, George R.R. Martin, and the like.
**THIS IS WHERE THE SERIES SHOULD HAVE ENDED. BUT, IT DID NOT.**
Book 3: Allegiant: This is where the real bullshit begins. From the second chapter, I knew what was going to happen because the story starts changing points of view. This didn’t happen in the first two, but once that happens, you know that one of those points of view most likely will not be around for the end of the story. The story was not well written, and the author keeps drilling things into our heads that don’t need to be there. This poor girl is 16 years old and basically becomes the face of this revolution. Hello, Katniss Everdeen much?? We really feel like the concept was stolen from much better writers. Now, they are outside the gate only to find out that they are part of a giant genetic purification experiment. FYI – None of this was science. It was purist bullshit. And in this book – anything you enjoyed or cared about in the first two books is totally fucking gone. Might as well never have been written. We found out that Tobias is actually NOT Divergent, which completely changes his entire personality. Boo. Now let’s blame it on his “genetic deficiency” to remove any and all responsibility for his actions.
At this point – Heather goes on a rant about Tris and her terrible Kate Goslin/soccer mom haircut. That’s not badass!!
And FYI – Tris and Four DID have sex in the third book. It’s in Chapter 41. They don’t come out and say it because it is a Young Adult book. Read it again. That is the YA version of sex. I was so freaking happy that they finally did it. Of course, that means one of you is going to die.
And now we come to it – We’ve had POV shifts, no consistency – and then comes the worst ending of any book that I was actually enjoyed reading. Right at the end, she kills off Tris. Fuck you, Veronica Roth. Fuck you very much. We didn’t need Tobias and his mother having a fairy tale ending. We needed Tris and Tobias to actually live happily ever after. Veronica Roth apparently thinks she is well above her writing. You cannot kill off your main character in a YA novel! The Bernstein Bears never fucking die at the end! Come on!!!
We will never read anything else of hers, for sure. Ms. Roth tried to blog about why she killed her off – and it was just lame. Her logic is illogical. She also said that she would kill off Harry Potter if she had written that. Yeah, that’s why you didn’t write that!
Liz’s sister keeps clinging to the hope that they will change the ending of the third movie, but I’m pretty sure that would be like saying “The end of Titanic is just too depressing… let’s let them all get to New York together!” Lame. Heather is completely offended that Ms. Roth thinks she is that good of an author.
The morale of this story is – Sometimes, two books is just enough. And, when you write everything to the point of absolute stupidity – you lose us.
Bitch of the Week – Killing characters off for sport/shock/awe value. We are talking to you, George R. R. Martin. Never fall in love with a character because they will be gone. The drinking game for Game of Thrones is to drink until the pain stops. Douchebags always rise to the top.
Internet comments (in-context):
Don’t waste your time on this corny love story stretched into three lame books. Not even the same ballpark as Hunger Games. BTW – she dies at the end. – Amazon 1-star review
Recommendations:
- Heather – John Wick (movie) – Action movie for action’s sake
- Liz – Ready Player One by Ernest Cline (book) – Audio book is narrated by Wil Wheaton. Super awesome geek references from 1980s pop culture.
Ready Player One will be our next book club episode in a few weeks time!!
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