Let's begin with the explanatory paragraph I was intending to post yesterday but didn't end up posting because of laziness and heat-induced apathy.
For the past two years, I have been spending sections of my summers endeavoring to gain, at the very least, an understanding of the passions and obsessions of my age and gender demographics. Non-pompous translation: I've read popular book series. Two summers ago I read Twilight. Last summer I read The Hunger Games. In addition, both to enhance my experience of the books and to potentially provide entertainment and/or recommendations and/or warnings to my friends and family members, I have posted daily reviews of the books, sharing my thoughts on what I read each day and explaining in the vaguest, least spoiler-y terms I could why I liked or disliked what was going on in each book. Previously I just posted my commentaries on Facebook, but this year I figured, Hey, I've got a blog now, and golly, it's dedicated to fiction. Say, I might as well post my reviews there!
So that's what I'm doing. This summer, as is evidenced in the title of this post, I'm reading Divergent by Veronica Roth.
On to the review.
I'm not very far in it yet, so thus far I don't have much to say about the book itself. The only thing I can really think to say is that the beginning feels very Hunger Games-y, in places almost awkwardly so. Katniss sells food at the Hob; Tris visits the Hub. Katniss is Reaped; Tris Chooses. Katniss's Reaping takes her away from her family and plunges her into a dangerous new reality, as does Tris's Choice. Both books are narrated in present-tense first-person style by a sixteen-year-old female narrator who lacks self esteem, has one sibling, and lives in a strictly regulated, tenuously peaceful postwar society modern Americans would likely classify as "dystopian". Both books feature a scene in which the female narrator's thin, blond mother arranges her daughter's hair.
Yikes.
I know people who like this series, so I'm going to be making more of an effort toward diplomatic reviewing this summer than I did with The Hunger Games and Twilight. So I can acknowledge that both series have plenty of original content. For example, Tris's world is much less restrictive, cruel, and dangerous than Katniss's (for now, anyway) and thus far I have encountered no indication, either in the book itself or on the Internet, that Divergent features a love triangle (my fingers are tightly crossed). But still...... I felt slightly uncomfortable with some of the similarities today.
Slightly.
Otherwise, I have yet to formulate any real opinions for the book yet.
Instead, I'm going to gripe about the author.
The copy of Divergent that I obtained from the library today contains a really long "bonus" section at the book. I discovered it while indulging in my sometimes dangerous habit of flipping to a book's last page to see how many pages there are. This habit is dangerous because it can result in the accidental learning of spoilers. Or it can result in accidentally becoming annoyed with the author.
The bonus section includes "Q&A with Veronica Roth", "Quotations that Inspired Divergent", "Veronica Roth's Divergent Playlist", "Writing Tips from Veronica Roth", "Discussion Questions", "Veronica Roth Talks about Utopian Worlds", "Faction Naming with Veronica Roth", "Faction Quiz", "Faction Quiz Results", "Faction Manifestos", and "Sneak Peek of Insurgent". Following this table of contents are some 45 pages of pretension and condescension, featuring lovely quotes from Veronica Roth (who, judging by the Table of Contents, seems to really enjoy seeing her name in print) like,
"The stuff in your manuscript that you love best is probably the stuff that needs to go - and you have to be willing to get rid of it."
and
"I have been asked in the past if I made up the words for the faction names. I didn't, but I did intentionally choose unfamiliar words, for an assortment of reasons. One of them is that I wanted to slow down comprehension of what each faction stands for, so you learn as much by observing as by the name of the faction itself."
I will freely confess that I am a touchy, controlling hoarder who is viciously protective of my writing and is somewhat easily offended. Thus my hackles rose as soon as I started reading "Writing Tips from Veronica Roth" (from which the first quote is taken) because I am SICK, sick sicketty sick, of all writers telling you that you need to tear the first draft of anything you write to shreds and throw it away. I have heard it over and over and I think it's STUPID for various reasons that I'll maybe go into another time. The point I'm trying to make right now is that, while I'm sure Veronica Roth didn't mean this, I was miffed, and in my miffed state I interpreted the first quote as, "Don't write a story you will love. Write a story other people will love because your minority ideas are silly and your goal is to become a bestselling author whose work is eerily similar to that of other bestselling authors."
Moving on to the second quote and getting back to the easily offended thing, DID YOU JUST SAY YOU EXPECT YOUR BOOKS TO BE READ BY IDIOTS?????? I'm fairly positive that I have encountered at least three of the five faction names (which are Amity, Candor, Erudite, Dauntless, and Abnegation) reading other books over the years. And if I didn't already know what the words meant, I would have looked them up, because those don't sound like made-up words. But luckily I wouldn't have had to, Veronica Roth includes her favorite definition of each word in the bonus section, along with one-paragraph-long segments explaining her reasons for choosing each word as a Faction name for the convenience of all the fans of hers who don't know how to use dictionaries. She also mentions how much she loves it when people notice that the Faction names are different parts of speech (three nouns, two adjectives), almost like she wasn't expecting OCD grammarians to notice it immediately and start uncontrollably twitching.
And the whole "slow down comprehension" phrase is just the icing on the Cake of Annoyance for me. If I used rare, marginally archaic words as significant descriptors in something I wrote, it would be to enable all my fellow Tiffany Achings to have major nerd spasms and to say things like, "I know what that word means and used in this context it's like the bestest inside nerd joke EVER!", not to force them to decipher context clues in order to understand the traits of the various factions.
*Deep breath* I want to like this book series. I do. I still might. I'm only 60 pages in to the first book. That leaves what, at least 1440 pages? That's plenty of time for the awkward HG similarities to fade and for me to forgive Veronica Roth for coming across as a bit high-and-mighty. Really, it's not fair of me to begrudge her that, because I know that if I ever got a book published I would probably seem at least as pretentious to my non-fans.
Also, all the rest of these should be a lot shorter, now that I'm done whining about the authoress and will be focusing on just the books.
Until tomorrow.
~Pearl Clayton
**PART 1 OF 2**
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*please hold while I geek out* YOU'REREADINGIT!!!!! YOU'REREALLYREALLYREADINGIT!!! THATMEANSIKNOW3PEOPLEWHO'VEREADITNOW! *mock sobs* I'M NOT ALONE IN THE WORLD!!!! *cough cough* *collects self* *sniffs*
Alright, I'm back. By the way, I know exactly the book you mean, because that's the copy I happen to own.
Interesting take. While there are some fundamental similarities between Hunger Games & Divergent, I think that a lot of it is...well, no offense, but relatively coincidental and inconsequential. I mean, yes, they're both dystopian, but that's a genre similarity. Technically, Harry Potter and Discworld are both high fantasy, but I think you'll agree with me that that's about where the similarities stop. Meanwhile, teen dystopian fiction trilogies only have so much room to be totally original, and they'll all have one basic combining element: the main character will invariably be a teenager, and they will undoubtedly live in a strict, controlling, tyrannical, overly-orderly world that ultimately aims to crush individuality and force everyone to conform. Furthermore, because it wouldn't be interesting otherwise, the main character must be, essentially, an individual who somehow must see the wrongness or be unhappy or threatened in this world. Does this happen in both Hunger Games and Divergent? Yes. Why? Because they're both teen dystopian fiction trilogies. Also, because that's currently what's popular in teen fiction (which is also leaning toward dystopian fiction trilogies), the story will be told in first-person present-tense to make the reader feel more as though he or she is inside the story and living the narrator's life and to make it seem more realistic, as though it's actually happening now rather than potentially happening in the very distant future (and, let's face it, it works).
The narrators/main characters are both 16-year-old girls. Notice that both authors are also female and it is common (though not universal) for women to be more comfortable writing about other females because we understand each other way better than we understand boys. And, as I believe you've pointed out in a previous post, sixteen is kind of the "standard" age. It's the age where Disney princesses find their handsome prince and fall in love and get married. It's "Sweet Sixteen" and it's also when teen girls are seen as responsible enough to begin entering adulthood in earnest. It's the age of freedom and choice. So, maybe the author's weren't too creative, but they both indulged in a stereotype that is relatively harmless because age and gender do not dictate personality differences. Yes, they’re both a bit insecure, but for different reasons. I’m sorry, if I was the sole provider for my family and then made the choice to take my sister’s place in the Games, I’d be feeling a little underconfident myself. And if I’d just been told, “Oh no, you’re totally different from everyone else. Don’t tell anyone or you’ll be brutally and secretly murdered!” I might be feeling slightly apprehensive about myself. But there’s a difference in their insecurity, and I think that will be satisfactorily revealed later. Katniss was too busy making sure her family survived to worry about what people thought of her or where she belonged. She was who she was, deal with it and let her do what she does. Tris does have time to think about it, and she has realized that she must either be happy and separate from the family she loves or miserable and the “good daughter.” That’s a big difference.
These are all exceptionally good points. In fact, the only thing here I really disagree with is the difference in insecurity. What I was specifically talking about is their apparent shared belief in their lack of likability. Where I am now in the book, it seems like both Tris and Katniss consider themselves to be quite unremarkable and unworthy of esteem, misinterpreting social cues and gleaning no measure of confidence from their triumphs. (I'm planning on going into more detail on this concept in today's post.)
DeleteAnd about the similarities...... I understand why they're there, and I understand that despite them the two series are very different. In fact, while I was reading today I was noticing them a lot less, so I think that (like I was expecting them to be) they're mostly concentrated in the beginning.
I was actually thinking of mentioning it in the post itself, but what I'm most reminded of is Harry Potter and Charlie Bone. Both are book series about a young British boy with a first name that is more commonly used as a nickname who, at the age of 11, discovers he has a strange magical power he was previously unaware of, at which time he is sent away to a boarding school run and attended by similarly empowered people. While HP and CB aren't as similar to each other as HG and Divergent are, they are similar, but as the series progress they become more and more different. I'm presuming that'll be the case with Divergent as well.
**PART 2 OF 2**
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Hub vs. Hob is a name-only similarity; they’re different things with different purposes.
Reaping vs. Choosing is very different because one is a brutal show of power meant to control the population by oppressing them with fear and pain whereas the other is a more subtle way of ruling people by presenting them with a controlled option that forces them to think deeply about themselves and what they want, with painful consequences that are presented and therefore understood to be necessary. While in The Hunger Games everyone but the Capitol people know it only benefits the Capitol and those who want to remain in charge, the Choosing is presented as something that supposedly benefits everyone (huh, I have a class just like that…).
Okay, the hair scene thing is weird, I’ll give you that. Didn’t notice that. But while they both serve to establish the main character’s relationship with her mother, the relationship itself is very different; Katniss resents her mother where Tris admires and respects her mother.
And the one sibling thing isn’t really that big a deal, is it? Plenty of people, real and fictional, have one sibling. And, again, both main character’s relationship with her sibling is fundamentally different, as you will see later.
I get what you’re saying about the writing tips, but the thing is, I guess I don’t take writing advice that seriously. Some stuff applies, some stuff doesn’t. Hemingway said that using a semicolon only serves to prove you’ve been to college, but I disagree, because it shows that you’re RIGHT, darnit! But does that mean I hate Hemingway? No. I just expect to gripe about how he should have used a semicolon in his works.
And yes, Pearl. Veronica Roth fully and totally expected her work to be read by idiots. You know why? Because it’s directed toward average teens. Walk down the street, take a good look at the average teens that pass you by, and I think you’ll sympathize a lot more with her plight. No, she didn’t expect many OCD grammarians to read her book; she expected teens who all rite like dis wiht the wurst gramer, like, evah to read it. If only teen fiction writers were writing for us, but they aren’t. They’re writing for our peers, and therefore they must write with according baseness.
Well. 2 pages and 971 words later, I think I’m done. Fare thee well.
More good points. I greatly admire your ardent devotion to this book series.
DeleteWith the writing tips, it wasn't so much the advice itself that bothered me as it was the apparent attitude behind it, like since Veronica Roth has a book published she automatically knows more about writing than we do and can therefore knowingly inform us that our favorite ideas are undoubtedly our worst ones. And I understand that we don't have the most auspicious of demographics (another thing I might write about today) but...... still. Tiffany Aching is written for teenage girls (well, you know, sort of), but when that series uses words like "susurrus", it's so that readers can learn new words and then geek out when the words are cleverly brought back later in the books (like in A Hat Full of Sky, when we discover Death doesn't know what egress means), not to slow the reader's comprehension and force them to consult context clues.
That's all. Thanks for commenting, by the way. Discussing stuff is fun. :)
Awesome review! Can't wait to see what you think about the whole thing...
ReplyDeleteThose are interesting quotes. Whichever way you take them.
What's funny about writing advice is that often it doesn't apply to the greats. Like CS Lewis and JRR Tolkien. Someone will say don't EVER do this. And then you look at Tolkien and you're like well if Tolkien did it...
I can't wait to see what I think about the whole thing, either.
DeleteOoh, neat point about writing greats. I considered saying in the post that I wondered if Divergent was originally more distinct from The Hunger Games, but Veronica Roth scrapping her most beloved ideas made it less unique. (Of course, there's a high probability that that's not at all what happened, but it seriously sounds like she's encouraging aspiring authors to reject their most crazy and original concepts and work to please the general opinion better.)
Are you thinking of a specific writing "don't EVER do this" that Tolkien did? Or are you just saying he liked deviating from the norm?