Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

NO SPOILERS Here I go again, hanging out in the Unpopular Opinion Isle. Divergent is OK unless you ask questions, look for logic and explanation and want interesting characters. This book suffers from EVERY familiar young adult trope there is: plain but "hot" heroine, who is also special, love interest that treats her like crap in order to "protect" her,(because all female protagonists need to be saved and protected.) He's troubled and a "bad boy" at first. How else will Tris be interested? It has typical cardboard villains whose only purpose was to be evil and give our special heroine some challenges, (but not to worry since she's special - she overcomes them SUPER FAST.) By any dystopia standard, it has a divided society and some kind of rebellion that sets the book in motion (400 pages later.) BUT the main problem arise in its unrealistic, nonsensical world building that left me with popped blood vessel from too much eye rolling. The society in Roth's world (dystopian Chicago) is divided into FIVE different factions based on ONE virtue. Abnegation: Selfless Dauntless: Brave Candor: Honest Erudite: Intelligent Amity: Peaceful Here alone lies the entire issue. Roth simplifies human existence to mere basics. If somehow these people were FORCED into this type of system or threatened and held against their will somehow, I could believe it. Text suggests it's all done with people's FREE WILL to prevent future wars and violence. But we have NO CLUE how that all came to be. Who sat down and decided on this system? Why did people initially agree? Is it only Chicago? I guess segregating people into five groups, creating animosity between them, with ONE flunky government (Abnegation), handing ALL WEAPONS to ONE faction, Dauntless (death defying, adrenaline junkies and eye stabbing sociopaths) promoting inequality, discrimination and rivalry between belief systems is a sure way to prevent wars & rebellions breaking out. What could possibly go wrong with this scenario? By the time boys and girls turn 16, they have a CHOICE between their own faction and another one, which makes the initial testing completely redundant and only there to fill pages. (400+ pages of literally NOTHING.) Oh and to expose our unlikeable heroine Tris as "Divergent" aka "Special" which is REALLY BAD, I guess. The author is all about telling instead of showing because the writing is simplistic and adolescent. Tris fits into more than ONE faction. Umm ok. So she opts for Dauntless because they look like rejects from 80's music videos. How mowhawks, piercings, tattoos and acting like a total reckless d-bag is considered "brave", is beyond me. Roth encourages these behaviors and I'm not quite sure why. These dauntless kids are silly, vindictive, and immature who jump off things and sabotage each other in every way possible, and once again they are considered "brave" by their Dauntless faction definition. If the person fails initiation, they become factionless. They do the jobs nobody wants to do: janitors, garbage collectors, train operators, fabric makers, construction workers - basically your standard blue collar folks that government rejected because they were not brave, selfless, intelligent, peaceful and honest AT THE SAME TIME. Tris calls them "social pariahs" because Tris is absolutely awful. She has a good home, supportive parents and decent life in the Selfless faction, yet she herself is incredibly selfish, inconsiderate, reckless, extremely judgmental and lacks total empathy throughout the WHOLE book. Aside from unlikeable Mary Sue heroine, typical love interest, cardboard villain and incredibly STUPID faction-based system that reduces human experience down to ONE virtue (apparently you CANNOT be intelligent and honest at the same time, or brave and selfless, ) the entire books lacks REAL enemy and sense of danger. Everything that happens is in some kind of dream or simulation. The main conflict literally gets resolved with deus ex machina. (I wont spoil) The bad guys are "intelligent" guys (this book is incredibly ANTI-intelligence) and the villain is described (by Tris) as stretch mark bearing, pudgy, suit wearing robot (fat = evil). To summarize, being a reckless, tattoo getting, violent adrenaline junkie is OK, but if you clean streets, collect garbage, WORK FOR LIVING, express emotions, or posses greater intelligence - that's bad! This book is dangerous now that I reallllllllllyy think about it. Aside from all that, this book is so mind numbingly STUPID, the plot is simplistic and filled with more holes than a mesh t-shirt shop and none of the characters are worth rooting for or sympathizing with. Skip it or rent it from library. Your money is better spent elsewhere.