Sell me Divergent

[Clement Rage]

Hi folks. Been hearing a lot about Divergent, lately, and generally I find things that have this much hype are worth reading, but I am having difficulty getting past a premise that sounds monumentally stupid. So, does anyone feel like making me a sales pitch?

 

[LicoriceAllsorts]

Can't. I have read way too many reports on this book written by over-enthusiastic thirteen year olds.

 

[Obsidian Fire]

It's interesting if you know where it comes from. According to the author, she got the idea from how everyone categorizes themselves in high-school/college (jocks, nerds, etc). And thought about how that could work if a government based itself off of that idea. The basic idea is that five different "personality types" (or factions as they're called) each have their own area of expertize and end up balancing each other out.

Basically how it works is that kids stay with their parents faction until they're 16 and then they take a test to determine which faction they belong to. Although problems start when people either qualify for multiple factions or none of them...

It's definitely not the best written work around, but I found it's premise more interesting then... oh, The Hunger Games. Mostly because grouping people together according to their personality types is something we do all the time already...

Although if you really want good dystopian fiction, read Brave New World. I like that one even better then 1984.

 

[Skan]

If it's anything like the film: A good fun romp, but, as you put it, monumentally stupid. It felt very much like a YA story set in a dystopian world. I am not a fan of either YA stories or dystopian stories, so I can't recommend it in good faith.

But if you turn off your brain, it might be low-effort fun? What types of books are you looking to read?

 

[Joe]

Can't say I can give a good analysis on the book/film, but I will say that I love the idea behind this thread (Sell me X)

Too often I'm told I HAVE to watch this or I HAVE to play that. In most cases I'd love to have somebody actually try to sell or pitch me it, to renew my interest.

 

[Clement Rage]

Not looking for anything in particular my thought process is basically 'I wonder what all the fuss is about.'

I enjoyed the Hunger Games (books), but the premise of this doesn't work for me, because a)there'd be thousands of Divergents, b)the test itself doesn't test for the things it says it does (choose between a knife and cheese? So if I pick up the knife in order to cut the cheese, that puts me...where? c) it seems as though it's trying for social commentary, but a social commentary of something you've just made up that nobody thinks could actually work...kinda loses its bite. I'm just wondering if there's some twist where everyone is secretly divergent so the whole thing makes more sense.

 

[Carlie]

Not exactly relevant but:

 

[Obsidian Fire]

it seems as though it's trying for social commentary, but a social commentary of something you've just made up that nobody thinks could actually work...kinda loses its bite. I'm just wondering if there's some twist where everyone is secretly divergent so the whole thing makes more sense.

This is pretty much the conclusion of the second book.

Spoiler: I'm not sure how much I should spoil for you,

but the entire thing is pretty much a muti-generational, city-wide social experiment.

 

[Clement Rage]

So, I eventually looked into this. The basic premise still makes absolutely no sense ( and it's quite hard to crack my suspension of disbelief), but if you get past that, It's not a bad read.

 

[Tennyo]

I've never read the books but I did see the movies. The first one was okay but the second was actually pretty good.