Book Review: Divergent by Veronica Roth

I've read many books in 2012 so far, but Divergent by Veronica Roth has been one of my favorites. Don't worry if you haven't read the book yet, this review does not contain any spoilers!

Source: Goodreads

Plot: 

 

Divergent takes place in a futuristic, dystopian Chicago where society is divided into 5 different factions: Abnegation (the selfless), Dauntless (the brave), Candor (the honest), Amity (the peaceful) and Erudite (the brave).
The protagonist of Divergent is Beatrice "Tris" Prior who was born and raised in the Abnegation (selfless) faction.
At the age of 16, everyone in the society has to decide whether they want to stay in the faction they grew up in, or change factions. But before choosing, everyone has to take a test, the so-called aptitude test, which tells you which faction fits you best.
Tris takes the test and gets a strange result: Tris is "divergent", which means there is more than one faction that fits Tris' character. But Tris is told to keep her divergence a secret from everyone she knows, because being divergent is dangerous. If you read the book, you'll find out which faction Tris chooses, and why being divergent is considered dangerous.

My Thoughts: 

There is a number of reasons why I liked Divergent:

- I could totally relate to the protagonist. Tris is a girl, Tris is physically weak, but during the novel she becomes this strong and brave person.

- They way the story is told is just terrific, I could NOT stop reading. I don't know about you, but I think reading an almost 500-page book in one sitting doesn't happen very often. I just always wanted to know what's gonna happen next, there were no parts of the book that I felt like could have been left out. When I found out that Veronica Roth, the author of this book is only 24, and that she published the book when she was only 22 (which might not be true, I suck at math), I couldn't believe it. This doesn't seem like a debut novel!

- Divergent is a book that makes me want to write fan fictions. I never write fan fictions, the only times I considered doing it were when I was reading Harry Potter and Twilight. (Please don't kill me because I like Twilight!).
It's a story I want to find out more about because I love some characters with my whole heart, while on the other side there are characters in this book that I absolutely despise. There is just so much more to explore, and I'm more than happy that Divergent is just the first book in a trilogy.

- Yes, just like in almost every YA book there is ROMANCE. I'm not going to tell you who it is going to be (you'll quickly figure it out yourselves), but let me tell you it is GENUINE. The relationship in this book is in no way forced, although it develops fairly quickly. If I had to choose my favorite couple in YA books, it would be the couple in this book. Sorry, Harry Potter (J.K. Rowling can write anything! but romance. Sorry ): )

- I find the world, the dystopian Chicago, especially the factions in the society extremely interesting. I want to find out more about the different factions, I want to know more about how the whole thing started, and I want to know WHAT'S OUTSIDE THE FENCE! And why the locks on the fence are on the outside!


At the end there is just one thing I want to say: Read the book. Just read it, I promise you you'll love it! And if you've already read Divergent: Read Insurgent! (Which is the sequel). (Review of Insurgent coming soon!).


RATING:                                                                       

Plot: 5/5
Language: 4/5
Characters: 5/5
Overall: 5/5

Author: Veronica Roth

Publisher: Katherine Tegen Books

Publication Date: May 3 2011

Genre: Young Adult / Dystopian

Pages: 496 (Hardcover)

Get it on Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/Divergent-Book-1-Veronica-Roth/dp/0062024027 (Available as: Hardcover, Paperback, Kindle)

Have you read Divergent? Did you like it? Please tell me in the comments :)

Update: Books I'm Currently Reading

Long time no see! I’ve been really busy during the last 2 weeks, trying to get used to college life. But I did buy a few new books and I wanted to update you guys on what I got and what I think about the books that I got.

First of all, I started reading “A Storm of Swords” which is the third book in the Song of Ice and Fire series by George RR Martin (I’m sure most of you are familiar with the books since the TV show is such a big hit in the States).

I’m reading it on my Kindle, and it tells me I’m at 27%. I know that Storm of Swords is many people’s favorite book in the whole series, and I like it so far. However, I thought the beginning was a little slow, and I’m glad things are starting to get really interesting now!

Source: Goodreads

On September 27th“The Casual Vacancy” by J.K. Rowling came out, and, being a big Harry Potter fan, I had to get my hands on it immediately.

The first few chapters were interesting, I liked the descriptions of the characters and places. Now, a month later, I’m still stuck at page 130, because I’m not that interested in what’s going to happen. In fact, I feel like nothing has happened after the death of Barry Fairbrother on page 3 AT ALL. I really want to like this book because I adore J.K. Rowling, I really want to like it because I’ve been waiting for the book to come out for months… But I have to force myself to continue reading, and every time I find an interesting book I want to read I stop reading the Casual Vacancy.

Source: Goodreads

Just like yesterday when Carlos Ruiz Zafón’s “new” book, "Der Gefangene des Himmels” (The Prisoner of Heaven) came in the mail. (“new” because the Spanish original came out last year, and I waited for the German translation because it’s better than the English one in my opinion.)

Hey, if you’ve never heard of Carlos Ruiz Zafón or his books “The Shadow of the Wind” and “The Angel’s Game”  --> CHECK. THEM. OUT. !!!

Zafón is a Spanish author and “The Prisoner of Heaven” is the third book in a four-book-series.

I’m going write a review on the first three books once I’ve finished “The Prisoner of Heaven”.

Let me tell you one thing: The Shadow of the Wind (the first book) is my ALL TIME FAVORITE BOOK. You have to read it! :)

Source: Goodreads

Wow, that was a long update! To summarize: I’m reading three books at the moment. Storm of Swords is slowly getting exciting. I want to like The Casual Vacancy but it’s so boring. Instead of finishing the these books, I keep starting to read new books, “The Prisoner of Heaven” in this case (which I hope will be as good as the fist two books in the series!).

Love,

Maren

Why Do I Blog in English?

Why Do I Blog in English?

I’ve mentioned in my very first blog post that I’m from Germany (at least I hope I did). I live in Germany, my mother tongue is German, I mostly think in German, and talk to other people in German. But why do I blog in English?

I think my English is pretty good for a foreigner. I started learning English in 5th grade, I was a good student, and soon I started reading English book that I had previously read in German. After my third year of learning English, I bought the last Harry Potter the day it came out – without having read the German translation. I almost understood everything.

I’m not trying to brag here, it’s just that from that point on the number of German books I read decreased, and I started reading more and more books in English.

Nowadays about 10% of the books that I read is in German.

Why should I read a (often horrible) translation when I can read the original words that the author has written? Why should I pay double for a German kindle ebook (yes, often they’re really that expensive)?

I figured that because I almost only read English books it would make sense for me to blog in English as well. In A Song of Ice and Fire (for fans of the TV show: Game of Thrones) they changed the names of some characters and places (e.g. Jon Snow à Jon Schnee (literal translation), or King’s Landing à Königsmund (literally: king’s mouth (which is so awkward)) . (You can tell I'm a little obsessed with brackets).

If I find a German book that I would really like to review… I don’t know what I’m going to do then. It will depend on who reads my blog (if anyone ever does haha).

There’s another simple reason why I blog in English: I want to improve my writing. Understanding English and speaking English in every day life is different from writing long texts. I’m not in high school anymore where I had to write lots of essays in English class all the time, and now I just don’t want to forget how to do it.

So just keep this in mind: My English is not perfect. But I’m not going to say “Sorry for my English” underneath every post I write, like many other foreigners (especially Germans, and I don’t know why this is) do. I don’t feel sorry for it. To be honest, I’m kind of proud of it, and very glad I’m doing this.

The next step for me would be posting videos on Youtube (which I think is so cool! And I like how the people who do it call themselves “booktubers”). But right now I don’t really have the guts to put myself on Youtube. Speaking English.  :) One step at a time!

"Matched" and "Crossed" by Ally Condie

I read two books last week that I really wanted to review. They're "Matched" and "Crossed" by Ally Condie. (Yes, I've been loving dystopian novels recently. This book series really reminds me of "Delirium" by Lauren Oliver (which I also highly recommend!)).

Don't be afraid of spoilers, these reviews don't give away anything about the books' endings!

Matched by Ally Condie

 

 source: Goodreads

"Matched" is about a 17-year-old girl called Cassia who lives in a world where everything is controlled by "the Society", e.g. you can't choose your job or your relationships, how many children you will have or what you eat. The only choice you get to make is whether you want to be "matched" or stay single for the rest of your life when you turn 17. Cassia chooses to be matched, but the result she gets is very strange and dangerous: She gets two results. On the one hand there's Xander, her neighbor and best friend. On the other hand there's Kyle, who Cassia finds out is an "Aberration" (which means he's not considered a citizen in the Society and can't be matched. But for some reason he gets matched with Cassia).

What I found fascinating was the world Ally Condie created. Her descriptions of the houses, technology and the Society in general are very detailed.
It took me a while to be able to relate to the main character, Cassia: At the beginning of the book she doesn't question the rules of the Society at all, she's very naive, and that kind of annoyed me at first. But after getting the strange matching result she grows more and more suspicious of the whole situation, and her whole character develops a lot.

I read "Matched" in only 2 days. I really got sucked into the story, and couldn't put it down. So when I found out there was a sequel I HAD to read it straight away :).

Crossed by Ally Condie

 

source: Goodreads

I always look up reviews online before reading a book. When I finished "Matched" and looked up reviews for "Crossed" I was kind of disappointed because so many people didn't like it ("Eew, I don't like the setting", "there's not enough Xander", "it's boring" etc. etc.)

Now, after finishing "Crossed" I don't think I'll ever read reviews before reading the book again. Because I really liked Crossed.

It's really hard to compare "Crossed" to "Matched". The setting is totally different, and there are many new characters. But different doesn't always mean worse. I really enjoyed getting to know the Outer Provinces, new characters like Indie, Hunter and Eli, and finding out more about Ky (because, let's face it: we didn't really get to know him in "Matched")...

My favorite part of the book was the character development (imagine what Cassia was like at the beginning of "Matched", and how she's so much more independent now), and of course I loved the fast-paced storyline.

I can't wait for the third and last book to come out (next month? Can't wait :D ). I feel like after Cassia found out about Xander's secret, the story will focus even more on the love triangle. (Which I know is like "soo YA", but done really beautifully in this series in my opinion).

"Crossed" was a really quick read for me (just as quick as "Matched"), and even though I liked Matched a little bit better, Crossed didn't disappoint me in any way.

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 If you have any questions about the book, or if you want me to review a book please leave me a comment! I'd love to hear from you! 

New Blog!

Hello everyone, welcome to my new blog!

Let me introduce myself: My name is Maren, I'm a 19-year-old college student from Germany, and I love books. I love reading them, talking about them, reading and writing reviews about books I liked...

Sometimes when I finish reading a book, I just grab the next one and don't even think about it anymore. And I want to change that. That's why I created this blog. I will post book hauls, book reviews, random posts... anything that comes to my mind :) .

I also have a Youtube account, a Goodreads account, and a Twitter account (yeah, I know, a lot of accounts with nothing really on them. But this will change. Hopefully (: ).

I'm still trying to figure out this whole Blogger thing, and it might take a while since I've never had a blog... But I'm really looking forward to writing here!