For a while now I’ve been looking for a book series to be utterly swept away by. After weeks of mediocre (but enjoyable) reads I came across Divergent, via a YouTube comment. Compelled, I Googled the title and became further enamoured with its concept. I needed the book immediately, so I ordered it without a second thought and here we are today. My gut instinct was on the money with this series and I am obsessed, much the way I was beginning The Hunger Games.
Five stars normally seems excessive, but not for Divergent I literally could not put it down. The premise is a dystopian world where all citizens are split into one of five factions on their sixteenth birthday. These five factions are based on a prevailing trait or way of living: Abnegation (selflessness), Amity (peacefulness), Candor (honesty), Dauntless (bravery) and Erudite (intelligence). The mantra of the world is faction over blood, so when you choose your loyalty switches.
For a dystopian novel some might say it is strange that this is all we know about this world, the what and not the why, but I found it oddly satisfying and found myself easily being swept away into this society despite not knowing how it came to be. The whole process is gripping: the aptitude test, the Choosing Ceremony and the initiation. I felt hungry to know how each stage went and where the next one would head. I couldn’t stop after completing one; I needed to keep going.
I also get the overwhelming sense that the lack of world building is intentional and that we aren’t meant to know much of the city’s history purely because its own citizens don’t know. We are only supposed to know as much as the characters and it becomes quite clear early on that they don’t know a lot. This helps to see the society through their eyes, bias and all, and means that any later revelations (which I know will come) will be a surprise to us as well as our cast. It is claustrophobic and closed-off, heightening the sense of danger.
That is just the setting, just the society. This is before the plot, characters or relationships come into play. I utterly lost myself at the start and from then on in it was action-packed, pacey and heart-wrenching. Our main character is sixteen-year-old Beatrice (later Tris) who leaves Abnegation (and her parents) for Dauntless. I loved her. She felt real to me, your typical sixteen-year-old with typical concerns, which was very refreshing from those MCs who are automatically self-assured or badass (Rose Hathaway and Katniss Everdeen).
Some criticise Tris for being weak, but I never felt that. She sits comfortable between popular and disliked. She doesn’t cause people to fall in love with her or like her instantly upon meeting them, she has a good mixture of friends and enemies, she doesn’t automatically become badass upon choosing Dauntless but earns it by working hard to cover her weaknesses. She is all in all a very real girl, with very real fears. I loved her narrative voice and loved seeing this world from inside her head, biases and all.
Most of all I loved how the (inevitable) romance side of things was handled. The word I’d choose to describe it is organic. There was no instalove (a pet peeve of mine in YA novels) and the plot was never jeopardised for the sake of the growing relationship. It snuck up on our MC and started tentatively, carefully. By the end of Divergent the relationship is just starting, an utter strength of the book to not go all goo-goo-eyed at the first sign of attraction. Again, very realistic and very much how you’d expect a teenage romance to go. All the teenage couples in Divergent are realistic and nothing like the proclamations of eternal love other YA books dish out on a regular occurrence.
Finally, the plot itself. Divergent mostly focuses on Tris and her friends as they progress through the Dauntless initiation, but you definitely get a sense of tensions rising in the mechanics of their world. You start out with a perfect system (to the characters) and learn about its flaws the more Tris experiences of it. Therefore, I never felt that all the major plot elements were rammed in at the end. I felt that the explosion of action at the finale was natural and a result of a well-paced novel. There were many twists and turns that I didn’t expect, which added to the drive to devour this book in record time.
Overall it is punchy and brilliant paced, the plot and action creeping, creeping until you are thrown head first into a dangerous situation. It isn't afraid to get emotional or pull at your heartstrings, packing punches at pivotal moments. I get the sense that we’ll learn more about this world as the series progresses and that we’ll find not everything is as it seems. Right now though Divergent has set the bar very high for the other books and I can’t wait until I get my hands on Insurgent. An absolutely fantastic novel.
5/5 stars
The Existential Crisis (Or The Young Adult Version of a Mid-Life Crisis)
Every day since finishing school at the naive age of eighteen, I have had at least one existential crisis a week (okay, that might be an exaggeration but they do happen more frequently then I'd like). This is down to how badly prepared I was before leaving school. Harsh, but I feel like schools fail children and parents try to protect them, which combined makes for some very confusing early years in the adult world.
These existential crises were minimal in university, not actually starting until the middle of my second year. I think everyone who goes to university gets this. I'll call it "the grass is greener on the other-side" revelation. This is where you are struggling with your academic work, freaking out about the amount of debt you've amassed thus far with the optional addition of watching your non-university friends blossom under their non-university life choices. It goes like this:
Since leaving university I've been having existential crises pretty regularly. It comes from having an uncertain future and fervently regretting past decisions (unfairly, I might add, but the panic fuels a biased perception of the way things stand). The symptoms of this full-on existential crisis are different from the midway university panic in that they have a pretty hefty impact on how I currently feel about myself and how I might move forwards in order to allay my fears.
See, this thought that gets in your head, the one where you don't know what the hell you're doing with your life, and it's based on what you did to get there (i.e. completing a degree). It has the added kick of making you feel like you're wasting time (time that you become suddenly aware of is limited) and you panic that you're missing out on key life moments. You should be travelling, socialising, living on your own, working, earning your own money ... but you're not, you're unemployed (in my case). You doubt everything you've ever done and you fear that nothing will turn out right. You have no future.
So this is life since leaving school and is probably a cycle a lot of people go through, almost like a rite of passage for all young adults to go through in order to official "grow-up." I would most definitely describe it as the young adult's version of a midlife crisis.
These existential crises were minimal in university, not actually starting until the middle of my second year. I think everyone who goes to university gets this. I'll call it "the grass is greener on the other-side" revelation. This is where you are struggling with your academic work, freaking out about the amount of debt you've amassed thus far with the optional addition of watching your non-university friends blossom under their non-university life choices. It goes like this:
- Doubting you've made the right decision.
- Doubting you'll ever get a job related to whatever degree you are pursuing.
- Thinking you might be more successful if you'd stayed at home and found work/done an apprenticeship/lived off Mummy and Daddy.
- Panicking about the amount of debt under your name.
- Figuring that you'll never succeed at your coursework/exams.
- Feeling like a prize loser.
- While secretly being very, very homesick.
Since leaving university I've been having existential crises pretty regularly. It comes from having an uncertain future and fervently regretting past decisions (unfairly, I might add, but the panic fuels a biased perception of the way things stand). The symptoms of this full-on existential crisis are different from the midway university panic in that they have a pretty hefty impact on how I currently feel about myself and how I might move forwards in order to allay my fears.
See, this thought that gets in your head, the one where you don't know what the hell you're doing with your life, and it's based on what you did to get there (i.e. completing a degree). It has the added kick of making you feel like you're wasting time (time that you become suddenly aware of is limited) and you panic that you're missing out on key life moments. You should be travelling, socialising, living on your own, working, earning your own money ... but you're not, you're unemployed (in my case). You doubt everything you've ever done and you fear that nothing will turn out right. You have no future.
So this is life since leaving school and is probably a cycle a lot of people go through, almost like a rite of passage for all young adults to go through in order to official "grow-up." I would most definitely describe it as the young adult's version of a midlife crisis.
Why I Love Pokemon Yellow
While everyone is looking forwards towards the release of Pokemon X and Y, I've been going through the first generation of Pokemon games, more specifically Pokemon Yellow. This isn't out of some nostalgia driven hunger, although little shivers of excitement do pass through me whenever the old battle tune starts. This is purely coincidental (I found my old cartridge, plugged it in and hey ho, I'm playing again) but it got me thinking about why Yellow inspires fuzzy feelings of warmth in Pokefans.
I loved Pokemon Yellow. Out of the first generation games it is ranked number one by me for the simple fact it has oodles of character. It takes the formula laid down by Red and Blue, and reworks a little of the anime magic into it to create a hybrid game that throws up familiar characters (Jesse and James) and familiar plots (collecting all three starter Pokemon the way Ash does in the cartoon series), yet retains the essence of the original first gen games (battling your way to the top of the Elite Four). You can't help but get sucked in by these elements, yet these are the smaller rewards that Yellow offers. In fact, the biggest draw of Yellow is a pocket-sized electric mouse.
Getting Pikachu as your starter Pokemon is a brilliant break away from the norm, but the best is yet to come, because Pikachu doesn't just travel with you on your belt of Poke balls. No, Pikachu follows you around wherever you go (as long as you don't cause Pikachu to faint in battle, of course).
This is a great addition that made you feel like a real Pokemon trainer for the first time. Seeing Pikachu react to the environment around you (the Bill moment made me laugh and the Clefairy moment coo) meant that you never felt like you were travelling alone. You had a partner there right beside you, going through changes and being awed by new situations that way you were. Plus, you had to win Pikachu's trust. The feeling of finally seeing Pikachu display love towards you cannot be underestimated. It was pure genius.
Sure, Pokemon walking alongside trainers was reintroduced in HeartGold and SoulSilver, but it never captured the same joy that Pikachu delivered in Yellow. Most of this stems from the generic actions that your Pokemon give whenever you click on them. Whereas Pikachu gave unique response, your Pokepals never had responses tailored to them (their type, their characteristics, their personality). There is pleasure in catching as many different Pokemon as possible to see what they look like walking beside you, but the HG/SS never develop their own character in the same way Pikachu did.
There is a big drive online to see Yellow remade the way Red/Blue and Gold/Silver/Crystal were. Personally I don't think this will work (although the mock-ups online almost make me change my mind) but I would love to see this game on the Nintendo handheld eShop. I honestly don't know why Nintendo hasn't done this yet already, but the GameBoy and GameBoy Advance Pokemon games would get a lovely home on the eShop. I'd certainly re-download all of them for the sheer nostalgia of it. Perhaps there are technical problems with an eShop version (trading and battling locally springs to mind), but I still firmly believe that the old generation needs to revived in its original form, starting with Yellow.
As for the remake, I would much rather that Ruby/Sapphire/Emerald get the next make-over, preferably with the upcoming 3DS engine. We've replayed Kanto and Johto a lot in recent years, so it's only fair that the Hoenn region can be re-explored. I'll keep my fingers crossed that we'll see both Yellow and Ruby/Sapphire/Emerald in the near future, either remade or on the eShop.
I loved Pokemon Yellow. Out of the first generation games it is ranked number one by me for the simple fact it has oodles of character. It takes the formula laid down by Red and Blue, and reworks a little of the anime magic into it to create a hybrid game that throws up familiar characters (Jesse and James) and familiar plots (collecting all three starter Pokemon the way Ash does in the cartoon series), yet retains the essence of the original first gen games (battling your way to the top of the Elite Four). You can't help but get sucked in by these elements, yet these are the smaller rewards that Yellow offers. In fact, the biggest draw of Yellow is a pocket-sized electric mouse.
Getting Pikachu as your starter Pokemon is a brilliant break away from the norm, but the best is yet to come, because Pikachu doesn't just travel with you on your belt of Poke balls. No, Pikachu follows you around wherever you go (as long as you don't cause Pikachu to faint in battle, of course).
This is a great addition that made you feel like a real Pokemon trainer for the first time. Seeing Pikachu react to the environment around you (the Bill moment made me laugh and the Clefairy moment coo) meant that you never felt like you were travelling alone. You had a partner there right beside you, going through changes and being awed by new situations that way you were. Plus, you had to win Pikachu's trust. The feeling of finally seeing Pikachu display love towards you cannot be underestimated. It was pure genius.
Sure, Pokemon walking alongside trainers was reintroduced in HeartGold and SoulSilver, but it never captured the same joy that Pikachu delivered in Yellow. Most of this stems from the generic actions that your Pokemon give whenever you click on them. Whereas Pikachu gave unique response, your Pokepals never had responses tailored to them (their type, their characteristics, their personality). There is pleasure in catching as many different Pokemon as possible to see what they look like walking beside you, but the HG/SS never develop their own character in the same way Pikachu did.
There is a big drive online to see Yellow remade the way Red/Blue and Gold/Silver/Crystal were. Personally I don't think this will work (although the mock-ups online almost make me change my mind) but I would love to see this game on the Nintendo handheld eShop. I honestly don't know why Nintendo hasn't done this yet already, but the GameBoy and GameBoy Advance Pokemon games would get a lovely home on the eShop. I'd certainly re-download all of them for the sheer nostalgia of it. Perhaps there are technical problems with an eShop version (trading and battling locally springs to mind), but I still firmly believe that the old generation needs to revived in its original form, starting with Yellow.
As for the remake, I would much rather that Ruby/Sapphire/Emerald get the next make-over, preferably with the upcoming 3DS engine. We've replayed Kanto and Johto a lot in recent years, so it's only fair that the Hoenn region can be re-explored. I'll keep my fingers crossed that we'll see both Yellow and Ruby/Sapphire/Emerald in the near future, either remade or on the eShop.