book reviews: Divergent and White Cat
Aug. 14th, 2012 08:57 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
psocopteraIt's not really fair to compare these books - Divergent is a first novel and White Cat is experienced author Holly Black at the top of her game. However I happened to read them at the same time so a double review it is. (And they do have a little in common, each being the first book of a YA SFF trilogy.)
White Cat was awesome, book two is in transit to me right now and I can't wait for it to get here because oh my god. I did not know much about this book going in and thus don't want to say too much here so that other people can have the same great reading experience but I will just say: three-brothers fairy tale with gangsters.
Divergent felt a little bit like it had been assembled from other popular series - take the teen-on-teen brutality and fucked-up system of The Hunger Games, add the house-sorting from Harry Potter, mix in a little train riding and skyscraper ruins from Uglies and Extras for excitement. I don't mean to say that I think the author, Veronica Roth, actually *did* that in like a cynical or calculating way; a YA writer is also probably a YA reader and thus may well have had those books naturally percolating in her as influences. But I do sort of think the conversation between her agent and publisher might have sounded like that. And, you know, it's fine - everyone likes house-sorting, and the action-y bits whenever Tris climbs or jumps off of something are good, and there's some nice stuff about the relationships between different virtues, and virtues and vices. But I don't think I'll bother reading the next one, I just don't care what happens to these people.
I would also like to add about Divergent that there were a couple of scenes that bothered me in a threat-of-sexual-violence way - it doesn't go beyond groping, but I found those bits quite unpleasant to read, and I don't think of myself as being hugely sensitive about that sort of thing, so, be forewarned. Also there's a bit with Tris's refusal to forgive one of her attackers and his subsequent suicide that I thought came perilously close to "you have to forgive your abuser" territory - it clearly isn't *just* her refusal, he's been suffering badly from the essentially-state-mandated torture (I mentioned "fucked-up system", right?), but given that in real life suicide threats by an abuser can be another tool of control, I'm dubious about the possible message there.
Huh, and after thinking about it more, I do have an actual comparative thought regarding these two books, namely that MAJOR SPOILER FOR WHITE CAT below:
one of the things I didn't like about Divergent was the whole thing about how special, how very very special, Tris is for being a Divergent, and yet it didn't bother me at all that Cassel is even more extra super one-in-a-generation special. But Tris's specialness makes her *superior* - all those normal people are like sheep, but her special mind can't be controlled! - while Cassel's specialness makes him a particularly valuable tool, but not, like, a better *kind* of person. And I guess I prefer that in a character.
White Cat was awesome, book two is in transit to me right now and I can't wait for it to get here because oh my god. I did not know much about this book going in and thus don't want to say too much here so that other people can have the same great reading experience but I will just say: three-brothers fairy tale with gangsters.
Divergent felt a little bit like it had been assembled from other popular series - take the teen-on-teen brutality and fucked-up system of The Hunger Games, add the house-sorting from Harry Potter, mix in a little train riding and skyscraper ruins from Uglies and Extras for excitement. I don't mean to say that I think the author, Veronica Roth, actually *did* that in like a cynical or calculating way; a YA writer is also probably a YA reader and thus may well have had those books naturally percolating in her as influences. But I do sort of think the conversation between her agent and publisher might have sounded like that. And, you know, it's fine - everyone likes house-sorting, and the action-y bits whenever Tris climbs or jumps off of something are good, and there's some nice stuff about the relationships between different virtues, and virtues and vices. But I don't think I'll bother reading the next one, I just don't care what happens to these people.
I would also like to add about Divergent that there were a couple of scenes that bothered me in a threat-of-sexual-violence way - it doesn't go beyond groping, but I found those bits quite unpleasant to read, and I don't think of myself as being hugely sensitive about that sort of thing, so, be forewarned. Also there's a bit with Tris's refusal to forgive one of her attackers and his subsequent suicide that I thought came perilously close to "you have to forgive your abuser" territory - it clearly isn't *just* her refusal, he's been suffering badly from the essentially-state-mandated torture (I mentioned "fucked-up system", right?), but given that in real life suicide threats by an abuser can be another tool of control, I'm dubious about the possible message there.
Huh, and after thinking about it more, I do have an actual comparative thought regarding these two books, namely that MAJOR SPOILER FOR WHITE CAT below:
one of the things I didn't like about Divergent was the whole thing about how special, how very very special, Tris is for being a Divergent, and yet it didn't bother me at all that Cassel is even more extra super one-in-a-generation special. But Tris's specialness makes her *superior* - all those normal people are like sheep, but her special mind can't be controlled! - while Cassel's specialness makes him a particularly valuable tool, but not, like, a better *kind* of person. And I guess I prefer that in a character.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2012-08-15 04:34 pm (UTC)Divergent really was not good. . . I think the most interesting thing about my reaction to it was that I felt kind of vindicated when I discovered the author had published it while she was still in college and was feeling as though that somehow justified my complete disengagement with the book, and then I thought that that was completely unfair, given that my top reading experience of 2010 and what is quite likely to be my top reading experience of 2012 are both fanworks published by authors still in college. I wonder if there is any good original fiction out there by college-aged authors?