Book Review: Divergent by Veronica Roth

I've been promising this for a long time, but I finally found a few minutes to write a review of the book Divergent by Veronica Roth.   This is the first in a trilogy of books that some people are calling the new Hunger Games series.  My quick take?  I enjoyed the book fairly well, but to me, it's no Hunger Games. (You can read my review of the Hunger Game series here.)

There are parallels between the two series, of course.  Like the Hunger Games, Divergent describes a dystopic society of the future, but this time it is set in a specific place--Chicago, no longer the "toddling town" that Frank Sinatra was so enthusiastic about in his songs. "  The main protagonist is a strong, courageous young woman who is capable of battling, and even killing, for her beliefs and for those she loves.  And there is the possiblility of a romance with a mysterious boy who may or may not be her ally.  There is a lot of action, but there are political undertones throughout the whole thing.

What I liked best about Divergent was the concept around which this version of our dystopic future society was organized.  I believe (it has been months since I read it) that there was a nuclear war, and this society were the survivors trying to build a better system to avoid such distruction in the future.  However, in the debate about how best to prevent future wars, the population broke down into five different viewpoints.  Each felt the cultivation of a particular human quality was the best solution to avoiding war, but each group focused on a different quality.  Thus, the society broke itself up into five self-contained units, each of which dedicated itself to the pursuit of its preferred characteristic and approach to life.  Each  faction operated on its own, but they shared the ruined remains of the city and worked together in a somewhat uneasy coalition.

The issue facing Beatrice Prior, the 16 year old protagonist of the book, is the fact that the time is approaching where she must choose which of the factions she will pledge herself to for the rest of her life.   Not only will this choice determine her future, it may severe her relationship with her family; if she chooses a different faction than the one in which her parents live and raised her, she won't ever be allowed to return to visit them.

Wow!  It kind of puts our worries about what schools to send our children to, or even which college they should attend, into perspective, doesn't it?

So I thought that was a really interesting idea to explore.  However, the book doesn't really explain much about how this structure came about, or why children are forced to cut off any contact with their parents if they choose a different faction.  Perhaps there will be more about that in the subsequent books.

Therefore, the book was less political philosophy that I had hoped, and more action oriented.  Of course, it is a Young Adult novel, so that's probably more appropriate for the intended audience.  However, even for young adults, I prefer my violent dystopic novels to use their violence and dystopia to teach some underlying moral or political truths, and Divergent doesn't do nearly as good a job with that as does the Hunger Games.  BUT, to be fair, I'm only comparing the first book of the series with the entire Hunger Games triology, which also got more political as the books went on.  So I may get more of that in the next two books.

The other way in which Divergent falls short, however, is in character development.  Even in just the first book, Katness (and the other characters) were pretty fully-fledged, complex, and interesting characters.  You cared about the "good" characters, and at least wondered about the "bad"ones.  That's not so much the case in Divergent.  Perhaps it is a downside of a book that is all about people trying to maximize a single characteristic...perhaps that tends to make characters one dimensional.  Whatever, I found the characters to be less interesting, which then makes the story less gripping.  The romantic aspects were also less intriguing, while the family parts were more noble.  All in all, it is just a less nuanced, less skillfully written book than the Hunger Games, in my opinion.  However, I believe the author was only 22 when she wrote the first book.  So for the first published novel by a writer that young, characters who are a bit on the "black and white" side is pretty forgivable.  Actually, for having been written by someone who is just out of college, the book is pretty phenomenal.

All in all, I enjoyed the book and would recommend it.  However, as with the Hunger Games, it is violent enough and political enough that I would save it for the teen years, rather than at least the younger end of the middle school years.   I am looking forward to reading the next in the series, Insurgent, which is supposed to be coming out in May.  I'm number 74 on the waiting list at the library for the book, so it shouldn't be too long before I get to read it.  I'll try to get my review up in a more timely manner with that book.

Here is the book trailer for Divergent.  It doesn't add much information, but gives you a feel for the "vibe" of the book:

Review of the Hunger Games series, with a little Pirates of the Caribbean, Harry Potter, and Twilight Thrown In

The popular media item I was most wrong about was The Pirates of the Caribbean movie. When I heard that Disney was going to make a movie based on a ride at one of its theme parks, I thought it was the stupidest idea I had ever heard. Even when I found out that Johnny Depp, whom I love love LOVE, was going to star, still, I was not a believer. But when I actually watched the movie, I thought it was GREAT for the kind of film it was. Fun, fantastic, swashbuckling action, and interesting, larger-than-life characters, most especially the one-of-a-kind Captain Jack Sparrow that Depp created. But it has some interesting meat as well--some valuable lessons amongst all the ghosts and pirates and young lovers and such. It was a perfect summer blockbuster film, and I admit I was completely wrong in my pre-judgements.

But my second most egregious error may be my previous dismissal of The Hunger Game series.

The premise of the book--that is, a bunch of teenagers who have to fight to the death for the amusement of the TV audience--sounded like yet another grim, post-apocalyptic YA novel filled with senseless violence (which to me, a perennially upbeat person my entire life, seems inexplicably popular to today’s teenagers). But I was wrong. Well, it is a grim, post-apocalyptic novel...now that I’ve read the whole series, I’m not convinced it should be classified for Young Adults, unless by that they mean college students. Most of all, however, it is violent--more violent as the books proceed--but the violence is not senseless at all. The violence teaches us a lot. It teaches us about war, and about power, and about coercion. It teaches us about human nature, and how really horrible people can be to one another...but also how wonderful and loving and heroic they can be as well.

Because as it turns out, the fighting between the teenagers is really just the appetizer. The entire series is more of a meditation on totalitarianism, a la Fahrenheit 451 or Nineteen Eighty-Four. However, it incorporates more modern aspects to it, such as the rise of reality television and the latest devices for warfare.

The series also kind of made me think of Harry Potter for grown-ups. Only instead of magical Hogwarts castles where the four houses competed in Quidditch and the House Cup, here we have the dystopic nation of Panen, where the citizens of the 12 Districts that remain of the United States compete simply to survive. And Voldemort, mean dude that he is for children’s literature, really can’t compare with the political leaders in the Hunger Games, who wipe out entire villages, schools, hospitals, or even a whole District, seemingly without a qualm. Because in the Hunger Games, they aren’t just messing around, trying to get rid of an elderly wizard and “the boy who lived.” In the Hunger Games, they are in all-out war.

So the Hunger Games books get high marks for realistically depicting what happens in war. And I think it is a valuable thing for young people to read. Again, I wouldn’t advise it for middle schoolers; that is, I think they could read it, but I don’t think they would GET it. But teenagers, college students, young graduates whose lives have basically been untouched by the multiple “wars” we are in and have been over the past 10-20 years, but where all the pain and suffering and destruction occurs only in foreign countries and among our paid military--this is a great wake-up call to how awful war really is. And one of the greatest questions raised, which runs through all the books, is who your enemy really is. That is not always an easy question to answer in a war.

HOWEVER....there is another side to the books.

War, and political coercion, and when and how to fight back, are definitely major themes of the series. But there is another backbone to the stories, and that (just like Harry Potter) is love. Yes, there is the love triangle, a la Twilight, except about ONE THOUSAND times better, since the characters are interesting and multi-dimensional, and they demonstrate their love through their actions, not sitting around moony-eyed whining about how they can’t live (or not live....well, you know what I mean) without the other, like the dippy lovers in the current soap opera that is Mary Worth..

OK, sorry about that. I just had to get that out of my system.

So there is a love triangle, but the choice is much more realistic (vampire versus werewolf...come on). Do I choose the one who loves me irrationally and unconditionally, even though I don’t think s/he really knows me? Or do I choose the one who knows all about me, particularly my dark side, to which s/he seems to draw me? Actually choosing a partner not just by how s/he makes you feel (ESPECIALLY when you are awash in adolescent hormones), but by the way s/he acts and by the kind of person you are when you are with that person--now THAT is a lesson about love. Again, I’m not sure even teenagers are ready to think that way, but I’m pretty sure middle schoolers aren’t.

And the wonderful thing of the book is that is not the only type of love explored. There is love for family and love for friends and love for team mates and love for colleagues that maybe even should be thought of as enemies. There is love for the earth and love for the animals. There is all kinds of love. And that, again, lifts this series above the many dystopic YA series there are out there.

So in this series, there is war, and there is love. And because it is war, and because it is NOT Harry Potter (as much as I loved that series), if you make it through the end of the series, characters that you love will die. Because that is the reality of war. And you will be shocked, and you will miss them, and you may even cry, but you will go on to finish the book, and continue to appreciate them even after they have disappeared from the text. Because that is the reality of love.

So if you are up to experience all that--I don’t know a better current YA series to read.

PS--If you want to see my responses to the first two books in the series, visit:
Book Review:  The Hunger Games
A Concrete Poem on Catching Fire

Book Review: The Hunger Games

I know that I'm several years late to the party, but I just (finally) read The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins, the 2008 first book in the trilogy that ended with last year's Mockingjay.  I've been meaning to read it for a long time (attempting, as I do, to keep up with the most popular books in YA literature), but was inspired to put my name on the waiting list at the library when the trailers for the film starting showing up, since I like to read these books before they become movies.

Now that I've read it, I see what all the hoopla has been about.  I really liked this book, much more than I expected to.  The premise--teenage children pitted against each other in a fight to the death while being watched by their fellow citizens--didn't appeal to me.  However, the world that Collins creates is a fascinating one, and her characters are interesting, flawed, and much less predictable than many of similar peoples thrown into a make-believe post-apocalyptic society.   The story is a much more nuanced one than I, at least, imagined from that thumbnail description.

So to flesh out that thumbnail a bit--the main protagonist of the book is Katniss Everdeen, a 16-year old girl who is helping her family (which consists of her mother and her younger sister, her father having died in a work-related accident when Katniss was young) scratch out a meager existence with her illegal hunting in the wild forests outside their settled living area, known as District 12.   Katniss and company live in the remains of America, which now is made up of a glittery and high-tech capitol where the chosen few live in luxury, serviced by the people who struggle in to get by in one of the 12 districts, each of which is dedicated to providing goods required by this dysfunctional nation known as Panen.   As a penalty for the rebellion once demonstrated by the now-obliterated District 13, the leaders of Panen now demand that each of the 12 remaining districts send one teenage boy and one teenage girl to participate in the annual Hunger Games, in which they compete by trying to be the last one left alive as they dodge threats launched at them by both the game organizers and their fellow contestants.

So, yes...it is another grim journey through the commonly post-apocalyptic world of contemporary Young Adult literature.

However, under the circumstances, the book is not nearly as dark as you might imagine.  There are touches of humor, grace, sacrifice, nobility, and caring throughout the story.  And what I really liked is the way that particularly the character of Katniss, but many of the other teens as well, is fleshed out in a way that young adults can really relate to.  Katniss may be in an extreme situation, but she confronts some of the same dilemmas as typical teens, especially in terms of relationships.  Could the cool girl actually like her?  Was she wrong when she assumed the boy didn't know she existed?  Is it possible that she is attractive--even beautiful?  And what is this feeling she has towards the boy in her life...could it be love?  Or is it something else?

Nonetheless, I would recommend this book for teenagers, rather than the younger end of the middle school range.  It is not unrelentlessly dark, but it is violent and can be disturbing, particularly towards the end.  Even more, however, is that I think it if fairly sophisticated for this kind of book.  It is not merely a Mad Max-like science fiction/horror book for teens; it has some insights about relationships, and quite a bit of political criticism.  Several aspects of Panem could be powerful critiques of contemporary society, which lifts this book above the typical YA offerings.  But I'm not sure that part of the book would be picked up by a middle schooler.

So I would recommend you hold off until your child is ready for books like Animal Farm and Fahrenheit 451.  I'm not saying that this is quite in that league...at least, not until I see how the series plays out (I'm number 60 on the waiting list for the next book, Catching Fire, so undoubtedly it will be a month or so until I complete the trilogy).   But it is a good read, a captivating plot, and has something to say about politics, teenagers, and humanity in general (although not necessarily in that order).

Middle School Required Reading

I was browsing through a local bookstore this week, and realized that they had a table with the books that were required reading for nearby middle schools.  So I examined the books to get some ideas about what fiction middle schools were studying these days and to see how my son's reading compared to that. 

The table had the books required by six different middle schools, four of which were private and/or religious schools, and two of which were public schools.  However, out of the 49 books on display, there were no overtly religious tracts.   Looking over the selections, I had some surprises as well as some books that were expected.

What author would you think would be most represented among middle school reading lists?  In this case, at least, it was Newbery Medal Winner Jerry Spinelli, who had three separate books on the table (a couple of which were in different piles, which I assumed meant that different schools had required the same book).  Following Spinelli's record three novels, there were three authors that each had two books on the table--Newbery Winner Avi, Newbery Winner Lois Lowry, and ALA Best Books for Young Adults Winner Roland Smith.  There were multiple other Newbery and ALA Best Book winners, and many of the titles were other books with good reviews that may not have quite made it up to the top competition level.  But, after all, that is pretty much to be expected.

There was definitely an emphasis on multi-cultural literature.  There were books about young people in Communist China, Nazi Germany, Africa, the Amazon, living with the Taliban, and trying to escape the war in Cambodia.  There were a number of books on both Native Americans and on blacks living during the great Civil Rights tumult of the 1960's.  I wasn't familiar with quite a few of those, and wrote down their titles as books to explore with my son.

On the other hand, there was few of the most popular contemporary literature.  I didn't know ALL the books, but I saw very little science fiction or fantasy, and NO vampires.  One school had City of Embers, and another had Hunger Games, but there was no Harry Potter, Percy Jackson, Kane Chronicles, or Ranger's Apprentice.

What I was really shocked by, however, was the complete dearth of older works that might be considered "the classics."  Again, one or more less familiar books might have slipped by me, but the oldest book I saw was the 1944 Newbery Winner Johnny Tremaine.  But there was no Jules Verne, no Mark Twain, no Mary Shelley, no Robert Lewis Stephenson,  no Jack London, or any of the other 18th or 19th century writers I recall reading in middle school (although, admittedly, my memory could be confusing middle school books with high school). But surely there are SOME authors who wrote prior to the 20th century who belong on a middle school required reading list.  There certainly will be some in our middle school literature classes.

The Gender Gap in Reading: What Should We Do About It?

A recent report by the Center on Educational Policy, based on data collected by the reading component of the National Assessment for Education Statistics, says that while the gender gap in mathematics (where girls typically performed statistically lower than boys) has essential disappeared, whereas boys perform substantially worse on reading tests than do girls--in some states, up to 10% worse.    This has generated a variety of opinions about what we should do about it.

For example, Jon Scieszka, author of such immortal books as The Stinky Cheese Man and Other Fairly Stupid Tales, The True Story of the Three Little Pigs, Math Verse, Science Verse, and the Time Warp Trio series, has started up a program called GUYS READ, which advocates the position that we should introduce boys to books that appeal to boys as a solution to the problem.  On some level, that makes sense, especially because I think books like Scieszka writes should induce ANYONE to read.

But, then, there is the other side.

I read a great rant the other day about this position of "boys need BOYS books" by a contemporary Young Adult (YA) author, Maureen Johnson (whose book, The Bermudez Triangle, was challenged in Oklahoma, which reminds me to remind you that this Friday is "Freedom to Read" day, a day that honors our ability to read 'banned books').  Anyway, she had a great blog asking why, after hundreds of years of schoolgirls having to read books by and about men, suddenly boys are demnding "boys" literature.  Read the whole thing here at her blog post, Sell the Girls.

There was also a great article on this issue in last week's Wall Street Journal.  The author, Thomas Spence, indicts typical "boys" books as focusing on juvenile humor, anti-social behavior, and unpleasant bodily functions.  Encouraging boys to read such books, he argues, will not help raise them into the sort of adults we want them to become.  His theory for the sudden decline in male reading ability?  Well, he points out that the gender gap began to appear right around the time that video games broke onto the scene...  Again, I recommend you read the original at How to Raise Boys Who Read
Hint: Not with gross-out books and video-game bribes.

Spence ends with an interesting observation.  He says there is no gender difference in reading among homeschoolers.  While that is certainly true in my own experience--I ran a summer book club for homeschoolers last summer in which boys predominated--I would love to know if he has any statistics to back up that assertion.

Anyway, I think it is an interesting educational issue to ponder.

His Dark Materials Series: Is It Actually Young Adult Literature?

My son read Philip Pullman's "The Golden Compass" this summer for a book club, and after he finished it, I picked it up and read it.  I thought it was a fascinating book--so much so, in fact, that I read the entire series.  I was left with all sorts of questions about the nature of human souls, of good and evil, of what happens in death, and of all sorts of religious and moral issues.  But one question I had that might be more central to the theme of this blog is, "Is this really supposed to be Young Adult literature?"

My son is a strong reader for his age, and he read the book without complaining and could encapsulate the plot fairly well.  But when I read it, imagining it to be along the lines of the Chronicles of Narnia, which I read at his age, found it to be so much darker and more complex that that series.  Rather than being like Narnia, I thought it was more like a combination of Narnia, A Winkle of Time, and Lord of the Rings, with a lot of Voldemort thrown in.  Of course, maybe I would have been better prepared for the series if I had read some of Pullman's interviews first, in which he said the series had been inspired by such works as Genesis, Dante's Inferno, Milton's Paradise Lost, and similar masterpieces.

Certainly, adolescence is a huge theme in the books.  In one interview I read, Pullman claims that the central question is not the role of religion or the church or the age-old issue of right versus wrong, but rather the issue of innocence as opposed to experience, which he thinks is the big transition that takes place in adolescence.  The two most important protagonists are 12, and are undergoing the blossoming of awareness of such adult issues as betrayal, responsibility, love, and sexual attraction.  So I guess they do epitomize the adolescence angst of middle school-aged children.

But I don't think most adolescents are mature enough to really explore the complicated and provocative deeper themes raised by this series.  At least I know my son wasn't.

I ended up feeling the same way about the His Dark Materials series that I did about Toy Story 3.  Toy Story 3 is supposed to be a children's film about the difficulties of growing up and letting go.  But when we watched it at the theater, it wasn't the children who were crying, it was the adults--my husband and I included.  It seemed more to me like an adult version of looking back and seeing how significant that time was, rather than the perspective of what it is like to those living through those experiences at the time.  And I feel the same way about the Golden Compass books.

I guess Thornton Wilder depicted it best in "Our Town," when Emily (also, coincidentally?, 12 years old) asks, "Does anyone ever realize life while they live it...every, every minute?"  To which the Stage Manager answers, "No.  The saints and poets, maybe--they do some."

So if you have a saint or a poet, maybe they will get these books at the deepest level.  But for most of our children, I don't think so.....