Why Divergent Sucks (Spoilers)

Divergent is a very popular book series-the movie came out recently. But honestly, this story is even worse than The Hunger Games.

The beginning of the series was action-packed and entertaining, but it deteriorated quickly after that. I picked up Divergent, giving the popular dystopian novels another chance, and in the first book, I had high hopes. Tris was a very admirable character. Obviously, she was brave, and she was also unflinchingly selfless, despite her own feelings toward being too selfish. She even stands in the middle of a target while Tobias throws knives at her face so that her friend wouldn’t have to do it. However, a big complaint I do have about the first book is Will’s death.

First of all, Will didn’t even have to die. There was barely any effort put into his death scene, a fact that is accentuated by his very likable personality and his growing relationship with Christina. This is yet another textbook example of an author randomly killing off a character in an attempt to pull some heartstrings. Even though Will was one of my favorite characters, I wasn’t really floored by his death. It felt too rushed and last-minute. After all, it’s not like Tris had to kill him. She could have simply shot another part of his body so that he would get distracted, allowing her to escape. But no, Veronica Roth decided to have Tris kill him so she could have PTSD in the next book and draw some tears. Also, Tris is barely fazed by the fact that she killed Will in the first book. She just shoots him and moves on, without mourning him at all until the second book. She also uses her gun hundreds of times without any hindrances.

The second book didn’t really add much to the overall story. Tris’s character weakens (see “My View on The Hunger Games”). Now, she can’t use a gun because she shot her friend. She didn’t seem to have any problem using it after Will’s death in the first book! But now, she can’t touch one without feeling fear. She worries a lot more about her friends and about Tobias. In fact, most of the second book is a blur to me. The biggest thing in Insurgent is that Tobias keeps nagging Tris about being too selfless-something I don’t really agree with, because I can’t see any noticeable change in Tris’s behavior from book one to book two.

And then comes Allegiant, book three. This book was so horrid that I stopped reading it right in the middle. It was absolutely terrible, even worse than Mockingjay. The plot was extremely poorly written. That surprise plot twist in the middle completely eradicates the purpose of the factions all together! The whole POINT of the factions was that you had to choose the one that you felt spoke the truth, even if it meant that you had to leave your family behind. It was all came down to a characters morals. Factions before blood, right? And Tris goes through one of the toughest choices she has to make in the whole series by choosing to leave her family behind. But with this nonsensical plot twist, the whole foundation for this series literally disappears! It’s not a questions of morals now, it’s just the question of a person’s genetic makeup!

And another thing! Tris’s death scene is the worst death scene I’ve ever read in my life. Now, I didn’t actually read through the whole book to get to that part-a friend of mine told me about Tris’s death and I went back to find it and see if Veronica Roth had enough writing skills to at least write that well. Of course, my hopes were brought crashing down once again. First of all, Tris isn’t even aware that she is dying! It’s literally like her mother appears to her and tells her she can lay down her burdens, which is one of the cheesiest things I’ve ever heard of. Anyway, there are no sad last words, or any tragic realizations of how short her life was. She doesn’t think about how she’s leaving behind all of her friends, or how Tobias cope when he realizes that she’s dead. And when I found the scene in the book, I didn’t even realize that Tris was dying. I thought it was some sort of hallucination from blood loss or something, but I didn’t think she was actually dying. It was only in the next chapter that I realized Tris had died. As with Will’s death, I didn’t feel sad at all. With a death like this, I’m surprised if anyone managed to dredge up some tears.

Divergent doesn’t deserve to be popular. Honestly, I’m not that confident in the tastes of the public anymore, if they liked this unstructured mess.

My View on The Hunger Games (Spoilers)

The Hunger Games is an awful series. I have no idea why it is so popular. And before I get showered in hate comments, I do actually have valid reasons for this.

The last book in The Hunger Games is definitely the weakest point in the whole series. The first book hooked me in enough to get the second book, but it started going downhill from there. The second book wasn’t nearly as good as the first one, but I was still interested enough to get the last book and finish the series. That was probably one of my biggest mistakes when it comes to getting books, second only to buying the Divergent series. But we’ll get to that later.

In the first few books, the plot is mostly centered on the Hunger Games, of course, and on the corrupt government that rules over Katniss’ society. The plot is fairly straight forward and interesting to read,and  even if they weren’t the best books I’d ever read, I still liked them. But of course, the series gets TOTALLY ruined by the last book.

While the story takes place when Katniss is in District 13 and trying to support the rebellion in Mockingjay, the story itself doesn’t emphasize the cruelty of the Capitol nearly as much as the other books did. Suddenly, Katniss needs to be used as a figure for the rebellion, which gets rid of her appeal as a badass character, and the story mostly revolves around her trying to decide between Peeta and Gale. Surely a book about a dystopian world would focus on the action and revolt. But no, now it is all about the love triangle between Peeta, Gale, and Katniss.

Also, there is so much unnecessary tragedy in the last book. To me, it just feels like Suzanne Collins wanted to have a tear-jerker and decided to kill off most of the characters that weren’t as important as Katniss, Peeta, and Gale. For example, Finnick just randomly dies. We don’t see him die, we just literally have to assume he dies because he stays behind and sacrifices himself to save Katniss. And it isn’t even tragic! I loved Finnick as a character, but when I read that part, I barely reacted. It didn’t seem realistic. It was just like I blinked and he disappeared. And what did Finnick’s death accomplish? As far as I can see, it didn’t add anything to the overall story. The most it did was leave his fiance behind. Even Prim’s death didn’t really do much for the story-yes, it sinks Katniss into a deeper depression, but as I state below, Katniss’ character hardly needs that extra sadness.

Another reason The Hunger Games was a horrible story was Katniss’ character. In the first book, Katniss is portrayed as a very selfless and independent character. She volunteers to go into the Hunger Games in Prim’s place. Before that, she had to hunt for her food and becomes the breadwinner of her family. She also survives in the Hunger Games  pretty well on her own. In fact, Peeta just weighs her down when they team up. She had to save him by getting the medicine for him and shooting Cato to save Peeta’s life.

However, by the third book, all this is thrown away. Instead of being strong and determined, Katniss becomes riddled with weaknesses and basically falls apart in Mockingjay. She is constantly depressed, and while I don’t remember the details,  I do remember that Katniss’ thoughts fall in a darker direction and she even tries to commit suicide at one point. Her character just becomes a needy little kid who is only useful because of her popularity. In contrast with her personality from the first book, Katniss constantly thinks about Gale and Peeta and whines about needing someone to lean on, or else she can’t live. I really admired Katniss for being one of the strong female characters in the first book, but I completely hated her by Mockingjay.

Honestly, I have no idea how this book series has gotten so popular. It doesn’t deserve any of that publicity.