I will always try to find something that I like about a book or at least something that was done well. Partly because the author worked hard on it, and they are published while I am not; mostly because I don’t want to feel like I wasted my time. But trust me, it was difficult to find something good about Divergent. I can only say that there was potential there.Onto the problems this novel has. The one that bothered me the most while I was reading was the descriptions. The timeline was never clear. I had no idea what any of the physical spaces looked like. I had no idea what the characters were doing half the time. I found myself rereading a lot before I understood what was happening.Even though it is annoying to have to constantly reread sentences, paragraphs, even pages, I will say that it might not be entirely Roth’s fault. I have a hard time reading Jodi Picoult novels, but I wouldn’t say Picoult is a bad writer. There’s just something about the way she writes that is not readable for me. Maybe Roth is the same (but I doubt it).There were scenes I had trouble understanding and then there where scenes where, once I understood what was happening, I still didn’t understand why it was happening either because there are elements that are just plain factually wrong, because there are continuity issues, or because there is no motivation for the characters to be acting as they are.The characters bothered me almost as much as the descriptions. They are typical stock characters (the every-girl heroine, the perfect love interest, the unrequited love, the friends, the bully, the unsupportive father, etc.). I won’t go more into that. They are too boring to waste time on.Let’s move on to the world of Divergent. There is so little information given about why the society is the way that it is. The factions were created to prevent war…. And that’s it. That’s all the information we get about why this society is the way that it is.And how do we get that information? Beatrice states it outright even though Marcus explains the factions only a few chapters later. Beatrice spends most of the novel telling the readers things they could figure out for themselves. And if it’s not Beatrice, it’s some other character acting as the exposition fairy.I think all the telling instead of showing is mostly to blame for my next problem with the novel, which is also my biggest problem with the novel. There were zero surprises. Roth telegraphed every twist in the novel. I feel like not only did Roth write stock characters, but she also wrote a stock plot.While reading Divergent, I never forgot that I was reading a book. I felt like I was watching Roth work the entire time. The plot felt like an equation. Every event was a variable that Roth just plugged into the novel and the result was 1+1= -5.There is so much more I could say about Divergent, but I’ll end my review here. The characters are flat, the plot is simplistic. The ideas are interesting but underdeveloped. With a few changes, this book could have been great, but it wasn’t.Additional thoughts: This novel centers on Tris's initiation process. After finishing the book I realized that is not the interesting part of the novel. The conflict at the end which leads to the climax of the story should have been the whole story. That is interesting. There are 400 pages of teenagers alternately beating each other to a pulp and performing daredevil stunts while the every girl heroine (who is still better than you despite having no self-confidence) struggles with being brave (only evident because she tells you every so often that she is brave) and falls in love-ish maybe? (seriously?). And then 87 pages where one of the factions overthrows the government. I would trade those first 400 pages for more of a buildup to the ending and a decent explanation of the world of Divergent. Either that or I would have gladly left out the dystopic aspects of the novel in favor of a basic YA coming of age story (which maybe Divergent was sort of trying to be? I can't tell). Either way, the ending of Divergent does not match the beginning.
