book review // divergent & insurgent.

When I visited Rich in February, I read like seven books in two weeks, it was nuts. Among those seven or so books was Divergent, and Insurgent by Veronica Roth. I read the first page or so of Divergent in Barnes and Noble a few months before I bought it and I wasn't really a fan because I felt like it was very Hunger Games-y. And for the record I am super pro Hunger Games. But then one of my instagram friends told me that I needed to power through the first little bit because it's very different, and she was right.

After you get passed the fact that they're both post-apocalyptic worlds with seperations within the population, it's so different. In this story there are five factions - each faction has different values and ideals, wears different clothes, and learns different skills. At sixteen (I believe) the kids take a test to see which faction they best fit in, and then at a big ceremony in front of everyone's families they decide if they will stay in the faction they were raised in, or  if it's different, the faction they tested to be most fit for, which means never seeing their families again. Most test to fit into one faction, but there are rare people who are 'divergent' and possess quailities of more than one faction. These people are considered dangerous, and this fact sets the scene for the entire novel, as the main character Tris is divergent and is urged to keep her status a secret, but is not told why.

Both of these books were awesome. I flew through them in a day each and immediately became obsessed with talking about it to everyone who would listen (which is what I do with most books I enjoy to be honest). And the best thing about these books are that there aren't any love triangles, it's mostly about the plot line. Obviously the lovey parts (if you can even call them that) are great, because I'm a girl and I fall for all of that stuff, but they aren't a big focus like they can be in the Hunger Games.

The first book is about all of the different factions and their qualities, and Tris' choice in becoming a Dauntless, the faction known for dangerous stunts and hobbies, for wearing all black, and for having tattoos. The other factions fear the Dauntless, and part of that fear stems from knowing the the Dauntless do not let fear effect them in the least whether they are jumping off of moving trains or diving down the side of a building.

I feel like the descriptions I'm giving are all over the place but I don't really want to give too much more away than I already have. To put it simply, I thought both of these novels were awesome. They are gender neutral, like THG, and are being turned into movies in the same way. The first movie comes out in 2014, and the stills I've seen from it look really good.

Another bonus to reading this series now, rather than later, is you get the satisfaction that comes form waiting for a new book to come out, instead of having all of the written material in front of you at your leisure. The third and final novel of the series, Allegiant comes out this October. But, if you're impatient, I guess you could wait to read the first two until then and read all three at once, but I think there's something charming about waiting for a new book to come out, it's more exciting.

That's really all I have to say about them, I can't really talk much about Insurgent without giving away everything about Divergent, so you'll just have to take my word on this that both of them are amazing. I'm very excited for the next book, and will probably read the first one again before seeing the moving so that everything is fresh in my head.

Let me know if you read one or both of these and like it!