Divergent (Divergent, #1)

by Veronica Roth

[Joséphine]

Ratings:
August 3, 2013 — 5 stars
April 30, 2015 — 4 stars

Thoughts upon rereading: The first time round I read Divergent in 2013, I devoured it. I loved it to bits. For most of my teen years I read contemporary fiction and to finally delve more into science fiction, specifically dystopian fiction, was exhilarating. Since then I've read more dystopian books, some of which impressed me more and some less. Also, this time round I tabbed the pages with post-it notes, annotated and cross-referenced. This close reading forced me to be more critical (in the analytical sense) as I read.

I was amazed how some moments in the beginning chapters were shadows of what was to come. I saw this as a strength of the overarching narrative. I found two inconsistencies but compared to the many subtle moments that were linked, I figured they didn't matter that much. The characters were well-developed and distinctive, even though each faction's members were supposed to be more similar than different.

What made me a little sad was that I felt much more disconnected from Tris as the first-person narrator as opposed to when I read Divergent the very first time and absolutely adored Tris. Either way, she's a great protagonist who shows strength, weakness, dominance, submission, and basically the complexity you'd expect from someone whose story you're reading.