Review: Divergent by Veronica Roth

Title: Divergent

Series: Book 1

Author: Veronica Roth

Published: 2011

Edition Read: Borrowed Library Book

Pages:  496

Grade Level Recommended: High School

Overall: I absolutely loved this book. I couldn't put it down, and I especially love how action-packed it is. Even if this book is the debut it is one that will cement Veronica Roth's career as a YA writer. 

Summary (From Amazon) :

In Beatrice Prior's dystopian Chicago, society is divided into five factions, each dedicated to the cultivation of a particular virtue—Candor (the honest), Abnegation (the selfless), Dauntless (the brave), Amity (the peaceful), and Erudite (the intelligent). On an appointed day of every year, all sixteen-year-olds must select the faction to which they will devote the rest of their lives. For Beatrice, the decision is between staying with her family and being who she really is—she can't have both. So she makes a choice that surprises everyone, including herself.

During the highly competitive initiation that follows, Beatrice renames herself Tris and struggles to determine who her friends really are—and where, exactly, a romance with a sometimes fascinating, sometimes infuriating boy fits into the life she's chosen. But Tris also has a secret, one she's kept hidden from everyone because she's been warned it can mean death. And as she discovers a growing conflict that threatens to unravel her seemingly perfect society, she also learns that her secret might help her save those she loves . . . or it might destroy her.

My Thoughts: It seems to me that most books are coming out as either a trilogy or a series set. This is great for young readers. They love a series or trilogy they can sink their teeth into. Much like The Hunger Games and the Legend trilogies, Divergent is jam packed with action that will make any reader not want to put it down. Divergent starts with Beatrice Prior just before she starts onto her path to adulthood. She, along with all other 16 year olds, must take an exam that will test her aptitude for one of the five factions of a dystopian Chicago. Candor, the faction of the honest, Abnegation, the faction of the selfless and Beatrice's birth faction, Dauntless the faction of the brave, Amity the faction of the peaceful, and Erudite the faction of the intelligent.

On her aptitude test, however, Beatrice is not assigned only one faction. She is assigned three, an unheard of number, and is told that she is Divergent. Although she isn't told what a Divergent is or why this is such an important thing to keep to herself Beatrice is wracked with guilt before she must go through Choosing Day and choose the faction she wishes to be apart of. Does she choose her birth faction, Abnegation, or does she choose another? On Choosing Day Beatrice finds herself, even to the last minute, deciding what to do next, and she surprises everyone, even herself, by choosing Dauntless.

Beatrice must go through an intitiation period with both Dauntless born and Dauntless transfer initiates. If you are not part of the top ten initiate spots then you will most likely be sentenced to a life of the factionless. Those in the factionless live lives of poverty without enough food and clothes to go around, and little safety and comfort allowed to you by being part of a faction.

To Beatrice, Tris as she renames herself, becoming factionless is a fate worse than death.

As Divergent goes on the story becomes about more then a quest to become apart of a faction or become apart of the factionless. It delves into parts of the human nature, and how the choice to become apart of one faction or another pushes a person to fit into the mold of that faction. The Dauntless, for example, deal in bravery. Fear is something to be overcome, and if you are not brave you are not Dauntless. Abnegation, on the other hand, deal in selflessness. You are meant to place others needs above yourself, and to meet those needs as often as possible.

What I found fascinating about Divergent is the delving into these parts of human behavior. How Roth did an excellent job of questioning what bravery, selflessness, peacefulness, honesty, and intelligence are in relation to a persons actions. Roth really went into this book with the idea of making you think about these qualities and how they are individually approached.

I wholeheartedly loved this book. I read it in a matter of days, and just devoured it. I lost sleep because I just couldn't put it down. (Thankfully it's the summer, and that's okay!) I immediately finished it and ran out to buy the second of the series, Insurgent. That's how much I loved this book. I can also tell you that I'm almost done with Insurgent, and will post up a review on it as soon as possible. If you haven't picked up this book, do so. You won't be disappointed.

Recommended For: Upper middle and high school students.

Book Review: Bumped by Megan McCafferty

Bumped by Megan McCafferty

Overall Rating: 3 out of 5

(Author Website) (Amazon Page)

Summary (from Amazon):

When a virus makes everyone over the age of eighteen infertile, would-be parents pay teen girls to conceive and give birth to their children, making teens the most prized members of society. Girls sport fake baby bumps and the school cafeteria stocks folic-acid-infused food.

Sixteen-year-old identical twins Melody and Harmony were separated at birth and have never met until the day Harmony shows up on Melody’s doorstep. Up

to now, the twins have followed completely opposite paths. Melody has scored an enviable conception contract with a couple called the Jaydens. While they are searching for the perfect partner for Melody to bump with, she is fighting her attraction to her best friend, Zen, who is way too short for the job.

Harmony has spent her whole life in Goodside, a religious community, preparing to be a wife and mother. She believes her calling is to convince Melody that pregging for profit is a sin. But Harmony has secrets of her own that she is running from.

When Melody is finally matched with the world-famous, genetically flawless Jondoe, both girls’ lives are changed forever. A case of mistaken identity takes them on a journey neither could have ever imagined, one that makes Melody and Harmony realize they have so much more than just DNA in common.

From New York Times bestselling author Megan McCafferty comes a strikingly original look at friendship, love, and sisterhood—in a future that is eerily believable.

My Thoughts:

I will admit right now though that I have never read a Megan McCafferty novel before. Yes, I must have something wrong with me since this novel made me laugh. Set in a future where anyone over the age of 18 becomes inexplicably infertile from a Virus with no cure. Unlike Wither, McCafferty's dystopia is written as a comedy rather then a drama. However the effects associated with only having underage young adults with the ability to create and carry a child are addressed in a more subtle manner. Melody and Harmony are sixteen and are already being labeled as "too old" to have children. Society's biological clock is ticking loudly for them, and their parents and peers are not letting them forget that.

Harmony arrives on Melody's doorstep with the initial purpose of ministering to her and getting Harmony to join her in Goodside, a religious and isolated part of the modern world which reads fairly similarly to an Amish community. Harmony's only reading material is her Bible, and her entire day is focused on work, prayer, and her purposed fiancee whom she should marry and conceive children with as immediately as possible. Melody's life is filled with academics, sports, and doing anything and everything to ensure the best college and future from her adoptive parents. This also includes being the first to sign a pregg-for-profit contract in her high school. Melody is all ready to conceive a baby, birth it, and give it up as Surrogette.

I found Bumped funny. Both Harmony and Melody felt a bit flat. It isn't because the plot doesn't have plausibility. The consequences of having only teenagers birth children has turned having children into a commercialized business venture rather then a miracle of life. Melody's adoptive parents treat her more as a commodity then a daughter. She is precious to them, but it only seems to come from how much money they can make off of her. Even though Harmony is from a much more religious background she is also being treated as a commodity rather then a person. The whole idea of giving birth has gone so far that thirteen-year-olds are portrayed as wearing "Fun Bumps" and drooling over highly-saught-after teenage boys, like Jondoe, who travels the world and "bumps" with teenage girls. All of which is more then a little disturbing. Not to forget the MASsex parties held by teenagers were girls "bump" with a lot of boy to ensure they all get pregnant at the same time.

However, the way the novel is written makes it frustrating to read. The characters were slow to realizing that their worlds and paths need change, and by the time the more disturbing parts of this society were realized by Melody and Harmony it was the last leg of the book. I realized then that a satisfying conclusion wasn't going to happen,  and the end was, of course, a cliff-hanger. I didn't think this book really needed that. I don't see where else the author has to go. She didn't build up many loose-ends that would require more then one novel. Perhaps if the story had been handled better I would say "go for it". But, I really have to wonder if a sequel  was necessary.

I would honestly say that if you're looking for a comedic dystopian read this book. It was funny. It did speak a lot in terms of social commentary and commercialism.

Book Review: Wither by Lauren DeStrenfano

Title: Wither by Lauren DeStrenfano

External Links: (Author Page) (Book Page)

Series: The Chemical Garden Trilogy

Summary (from GoodReads):

What if you knew exactly when you would die? Thanks to modern science, every human being has become a ticking genetic time bomb—males only live to age twenty-five, and females only live to age twenty. In this bleak landscape, young girls are kidnapped and forced into polygamous marriages to keep the population from dying out.

When sixteen-year-old Rhine Ellery is taken by the Gatherers to become a bride, she enters a world of wealth and privilege. Despite her husband Linden's genuine love for her, and a tenuous trust among her sister wives, Rhine has one purpose: to escape—to find her twin brother and go home.

But Rhine has more to contend with than losing her freedom. Linden's eccentric father is bent on finding an antidote to the genetic virus that is getting closer to taking his son, even if it means collecting corpses in order to test his experiments. With the help of Gabriel, a servant Rhine is growing dangerously attracted to, Rhine attempts to break free, in the limited time she has left.

DeStefano's writing is good. That is the first thing you will see when you pick up this book. Good in that she is able to effectively draw you into the world that she's created. A world where women have fallen so far down the social food chain that they've become commodities all over again. A thing to be taken and used for a purpose rather then loved and cherished. You can really understand the way that Rhine has hidden herself away. How dark and frightening her life was before she was captured. I could always imagine Rhine and her brother staying up all night in an attempt to keep Rhine from being kidnapped. How their house was completely closed off except for the basement. How people who aren't rich are living lives that are wrapped around not being kidnapped and barely surviving one day to the next. And, those that are rich live lives are amazingly privileged in more ways then just money and food. Rhine's husband, Linden, is so sheltered in his life he believes that being his wife is all that Rhine has wanted to be.

From the moment she arrives as Gov. Linden's wife, one of four, Rhine has decided to run as far away from her new home as possible. But the longer she stays in her prison the harder it becomes to leave her sister wives. Escaping her father-in-law's ever seeing eyes also becomes difficult for her. By the time I hit the last 1/4th of the novel I was as ready as Rhine was to make her escape. PLEASE woman LEAVE was basically how I felt. For the love of pete stop crying about leaving and LEAVE. I know that escaping for Rhine is hard considering that she had to gain trust in both her husband and her father-in-law in order to even make it outside of her home. But, still. I just wanted Rhine to run away by the end of the novel.

Writing aside I still have no idea what The Chemical Garden is. Absolutely none. As a novel, not apart of a series, I have to say that Wither is a wonderfully well written novel. As a trilogy it's still to be seen just where DeStefano will take her main character Rhine. I mean I read 351 pages and I still can't tell you what the Chemical Garden is, is not very good for a novel that's apart of a trilogy. The second book, Fever, comes out in February 2011. I will definitely be picking it up.

Review: Matched by Ally Condie

Rated: 8 out of 10
Matched by Ally Condie
Published November 2010
(Author Website)  (Book Website)
Summary from book website:

In the Society, Officials decide. Who you love. Where you work. When you die.

Cassia has always trusted their choices. It’s hardly any price to pay for a long life, the perfect job, the ideal mate. So when her best friend appears on the Matching screen, Cassia knows with complete certainty that he is the one… until she sees another face flash for an instant before the screen fades to black. Now Cassia is faced with impossible choices: between Xander and Ky, between the only life she’s known and a path no one else has ever dared follow — between perfection and passion.

When we meet Cassia it is the night of her Match banquet. The night that  she will learn who she will spend the rest of her life with, who she will have children with, who will be her constant companion. When she stands to see her Match she learns that it is none other then her childhood friend, Xander, handsome, funny, and home. Cassia is extremely pleased with her Match. It couldn't have gone better. She doesn't even plan on looking at her micro card to read more about Xander; she knows him so well after all.  But the night she truly decides to pick up and see what is on her card about Xander it isn't Xander that looks back at her through the Port. It's another boy, a different boy, but a boy she already knows.  This shakes Cassia to her core. The Society doesn't make mistakes. Why, then, would Ky's picture show up where Xander's should have been?

Matched was marketed as being similar to The Giver in it's seemingly perfect society that truly isn't all that perfect. I have read The Giver, and I've read and Matched. (Sadly I quit working at the library and had to give The Giver back before finishing it. I haven't had the chance or remembered to buy it the few times I've made it to the bookstore in the past few weeks. If Jannsen, of Everyday Reading, joined The Giver party late when she read it at nineteen I joined it almost ten years later. What does that say about me? But, lets move on.) Both are beautiful, and both say so much about life without being overbearing. Ally Condie, the author of Matched, is a wonder writer. Her world and characters felt so small and intertwined that I felt like I could have been one of them. I could have befriended Cassia. I could have fallen in love with her Match Xander. I could completely understand Cassia's inner struggle when it came to coming to terms with the Society she has always known and believed in.

Yes, this is dystopian fiction, and yes it is pretty routine where dystopians are set. A society that is seemingly perfect, a young adult who learns otherwise, who feels betrayed, and is forever changed when she/he learns about the lies they've been feed their whole lives. And, yes, dystopians are being published like crazy, but this book I readily gave away to be read. I felt like I had to share the book. It was beautifully written. It made you think, and honestly I think it falls more along the lines of a mystery that is slowly being unravelled all the while making you think and ponder about of life's most amazing phenomenons, love.

I can't wait to read what happens to Cassia, Xander, and Ky next. I hope everyone gives Matched a try, even if dystopians aren't your thing.

Incarceron by Catherine Fisher

For the first time since starting this blog I'm putting a score on a review. Sometimes I just feel like it would help a lot to put a score on a review. So here I am doing something I didn't think I would do. Go figure. 

Incarceron by Catherine Fisher

Overall Score: 4 out of 10

Incarceron- a futuristic prison, sealed from view, where the descendants of the original prisoners live in a dark world torn by rivalry and savagery. It is a terrifying mix of high technology-a living building which pervades the novel as an ever-watchful, ever-vengeful character, and a typical medieval torture chamber-chains great halls, dungeons. A young prisoner, Finn, has haunting visions of an earlier life, and cannot believe he was born here and has always been here. 

In the outer world, Claudia, daughter of the Warden of Incarceron, is trapped in her own form prison--a futuristic world constructed beautifully to look like a past era, an imminent marriage he dreads. She knows nothing of Incarceron, except that it exists. But there comes a moment when Finn, inside Incarceron, and Claudia, outside simultaneously find a device--a crystal key, through which they can talk to each other. And so the plan for Finn's escape is born. 

From the moment I read the plot to Incarceron I knew I wanted to read it. The very idea held so much potential. I hadn't read any other reviews before I signed up to read the sequel, Sapphique, on an ARC tour. Unfortunately I didn't like Incarceron as much as I thought I would. The backstory was rarely explained throughout the novel (a 400 page novel mind you) and you simply followed along as Claudia and Finn tried to find a way out of their respective prisons.

Why Incarceron exists, outside of creating a so-called paradise, isn't well explained within the confines of the story. Yes, there are notes, bits of letters, and pieces of history in the header of each chapter--which is very creative--but I felt like a lot of those small quotes were used in place of telling an actual history. I kept waiting for someone to give me a backstory on the Era, why the powers that be would decide on a such a drastic change in everyone's lives to halt time as it were. To chose to send thousands of people into a prison that no one would return from. Also, did sending all prisoners to Incarceron instantly stop crime from occurring. Do they chose to send new prisoners from people who break the law Outside, and these people are really the cell-borns? It would make some kind of sense, wouldn't it?

I was left with so many questions that I felt weren't really answered. Instead we were left with a story about a girl who didn't want to get married and a boy that might be the heir to a country he knows nothing about. The book ended and yet I still felt like I just didn't understand the world that Fisher was trying to build. I got the idea, I understood the Era they were trying to recreate, and sort of why it happened, but I wanted to know more.

Finn is your tortured teen who knows, believes, feels that he doesn't belong in a Prison full of thieves and killers. Claudia is a girl who feels the same way, but has no idea how she could Escape. She is trapped just as much as Finn except with prettier dresses and better hygiene. I found so much of this book to be interesting and fun to read, but I also felt like so many words were wasted on not telling us what and why this world existed. Perhaps leaving us with so many questions at the end of Incarceron was Fisher's way of making us want the sequel to answer them. Unfortunately I was left with a half-finished feeling. I liked the story well enough, but if I wasn't receiving Sapphique as an ARC I don't know if I would of bought it on my own.

The writing was beautiful, but I felt all too often that I was being dragged along on a trip that was taking too long. I could have done with a story that was 50 pages less. Like I said it wasn't a bad book, but it wasn't as good as I'd hoped it would be. So far the sequel is proving to be just as intriguing as Incarceron, but we'll just need to see how the story goes.