This is an interesting series to talk about because on one hand, it’s an extremely nostalgic trilogy, but on the other, I cannot stand the character relationships. And I want to emphasise this, I CANNOT STAND THE CHARACTER RELATIONSHIPS. I’ll get more into this later on, but for now, let’s go through the plot of the trilogy first.
Becoming fearless isn’t the point. That’s impossible. It’s learning how to control your fear, and how to be free from it.
Divergent by Veronica Roth
(CONTAINS SPOILERS)
So, this is a dystopian trilogy, taking place in an alternate universe Chicago, USA. Much of the city is destroyed and only a small section of it is inhabited by a society which is split into five factions: Candor (honesty), Amity (peace), Erudite (intelligence), Dauntless (brave) and, Abnegation (selfless). Once a year, all 16 year-olds formally decide which faction they want to devote their lives to, many stay in the faction they were born into but some do switch to different factions. Beatrice “Tris” Prior was born into Abnegation, but in a split-second decision, she chooses to join Dauntless.
Now, Tris has to participate in Dauntless’ competitive initiation, where she has to learn all the skills necessary to be part of Dauntless (think of Dauntless as the protectors/ police of the society; their initiation has a lot of combat-related tasks). Tris and her small friend group of initiates have to go through the physical tests as well as psychological simulations.
However, while Tris tries to officially become part of Dauntless, she has a secret – she is Divergent. She has traits of more than one faction and her very existence can create chaos in the faction system (the idea being that the dominating trait each person has is in line with only one of the factions, not a few or all of the factions). Being Divergent is enough to warrant Erudite to kill then, and Tris is dangerously close to her secret being revealed.
Eventually, Tris does manage to be initiated into Dauntless, but Erudite had other plans. They are making moves to gain more control over the factions and they are also ready to kill Divergent. So, as tensions rise, and as civil war threatens the peaceful society, Tris’ actions are now determinative of her world as she knows it.
In the second novel, Insurgent, the faction society is in shambles, the power struggles caused by Erudite’s ambition for more power has officially broken the peaceful system of their society. Tris, along with Tobias, escapes the dangers, but there are other issues she has to deal with and, running from the political issues won’t do much except put more people in danger.
The third and final novel in the series, Allegiant, can be essentially summarised down to this: Tris makes plans to end Erudite’s ambitious plans and restore peace in her society. Even if it means she has to die for peace.
Now, a lot of the issues I have with this trilogy, and almost all of it is related to the characters. So, I’ll talk about Tris and go through the downsides of this novel.
Tris is our main character, and she is introduced in the very first novel, as a reserved, polite and somewhat of a ‘goody two shoes’ character. However, when she decides to join Dauntless, her personality traits change to the complete opposite basically. Overall, I understand what the author tried to do – Tris grew up in Abnegation, the faction which is selfless, think of them as the ones who do social work and a lot of charity work. But as a result of changing factions, Tris has to learn to be Dauntless – brave, bold, more ‘in your face’ and a tad bit more selfish. So, I understand that this journey is a necessary one, with the way that the plot is set up, it is inevitable that Tris’ personality changes completely. However, I just really didn’t like how it was executed. We are told that Tris does want more from her life, she does want a bit of danger in her life, however, I don’t think that enough was done for her to go through this journey and this change. Basically I think her change happened so quickly; the switch between the two traits was too sudden in my opinion anyways.
Arguably, I do admit this could also be the result of so many changes happening to Tris – she’s stressing out over the Dauntless initiation competition, she’s trying to not let people find out she’s Divergent, political issues with Erudite, her family missing her, friendships, love and betrayal. A lot was happening, so her sudden personality change can be defended. Overall, however, I personally still think that Tris’ change was too sudden.
Now, another thing which I absolutely could not stand (I wanted to scream almost every time it happened in the novel) was the miscommunication issues between Tris and Tobias. Tobias is Tris’ main love interest and they do get into a relationship with each other, however, their relationship is turbulent and a lot of outside factors affect their relationship as well e.g the politics, secrets, betrayals etc. But, a lot of their issues could very easily be solved if they just TALKED TO EACH OTHER! I cannot properly express how frustrating it was reading the final book (which was in dual perspectives) where Tris and Tobias were so stuck in their own heads and assumptions that they let their relationship deteriorate because they did not communicate with each other. When they did talk, their conversations were always (ALWAYS) interpreted differently and thus, resulted in more miscommunication issues. I hated this. It was terrible. Please, if you are an author, think of something better than miscommunication. Please. For my sanity. Please.
Also, just one more thing, but this dystopian trilogy has themes that are very surface level. The Hunger Games, for example, is much more complicated. Divergent, on the other hand, feels more superficial and basic.
Overall, this is a dystopian trilogy where there’s an alternative society and everything is seemingly okay, but the reality is far from it. I did like this trilogy, I was a fan of the plot and it was intriguing. However, the issues I mentioned above really brought the entire series down for me to the point where I couldn’t focus on the better parts of this trilogy. I think if there was less miscommunication this trilogy would have been so much better – especially since a lot of the plot did focus on Tris and Tobias’ relationship and teamwork. A little less drama in their relationships would have made this trilogy much stronger and more enjoyable for me.
That’s it for my review, thanks for reading and of course, if you have read this trilogy please let me know what you thought of it, and finally, I hope you have a lovely day.
Note: this was originally published in 2021.
Silk Roads Reviews 
One thought on “Book Review: Divergent Trilogy by Veronica Roth”