This series was books number 23-25 in my attempt to read 100 books in a year (2019). This is an extremely biased review as I loved these books, just as much as I love the writing style of the author!

If you’ve been paying attention, you’ll know that a few weeks before this I read the book ‘Four’, which was a novella narrated from Four’s side of the story, based at the begining of the Divergent books. Well, that gave me the bug, I had to re-read the rest of them! Last time I read them was at Uni and I finished them over the course of about day (not much to do at uni during my second year, so I could afford to kill a day reading!). I did read them incredibly quickly though and I do think I lost something by doing that.

Cannot express how much I enjoy these books, even though I am a sucker for a YA dystopian type novel with a deep passionate romance in it, I do think these are very well rounded books. I think that the majority of the characters have depth and go through tangible personal journey’s. I will admit to not being overly enamoured with the part of the plot in the 3rd book where they adventure into the world outside the city and discover that they are part of a genetic experiment. Divergent people like Tris are evidence of it’s success in their attempt to heal damage DNA that was altered in the wars that ravaged the planet. It was a very clever explanation for why the faction system existed/ was created and it created important points to consider, such as expermenting on humans, sometimes resorting to cruel measures for the sake of a cause that they believed would save the world. Plus themes of segration because of DNA and the priveldges that come with being considered ‘superior’, as well as the ‘nature versus nurture’ aspect of the experiments. Perhaps, I was too caught up in the world of the faction because they are so important to Tris, who, unlike Tobias, feels her indetification with them very strongly despite her status as Divergent. Either way, I never found this revelation completely satisfatory but I loved it for how surprising and clever it was; essentially, I am very conflicted about it.

Now, I must address the ending. It is a good ending, it’s so spectacular and surprising (at least it was to me) and I understand how it probably couldn’t have ended any other way. However, I will never forgive Veronica Roth. I won’t give you any spoilers, just know that I threw the book at a wall the first time I read it.

I’m so sad the last film based on this series will never get made because I really loved the films too and felt like the actors were just right for the characters. Perhaps Netflix will turn it into an original series one day, I really hope they do!

Here’s the Good Read’s summary for more information- I thoroughly recommend you read them if you like this kind of thing!