Final Reflection

Though I am quick and eager to be done with this project (the perks of doing 75% of it in one sitting) I return for a final installment.

Divergent was by no means a bad book, especially when you consider that it's Roth's first book. It was smooth, thought provoking and pleasant enough on the first read. The concepts are good, but on a second read the plot becomes rushed; the characters, weak. The most solid characters are probably Peter, Christina, and Uriah--all who would have provided better mains, in my opinion, but hey--not my book. If the book stayed more to analyzing humans at their core I would have enjoyed it unbelievably more. Once Tobias and Tris got together it went down hill, and I really came to dislike both characters.

One month =/= love. 
One month can equate to limerence. One month can equate infatuation. One month can equate hormonal lust. (Two of which are more likely than the other).

On a chemical level, love can't come that quickly. Your brain has to rewire itself, must receive reciprocation (unless it's aggression affection) and your serotonin takes time to drop. This was one of my biggest issues with the book. I HATE "love" that comes on too quickly, too strongly, or unnecessarily. Tris and Tobias don't even spend very much time getting to know each other, and only have a few meaningful isolated conversations throughout the text but she equates her emotional loss of him to the physical loss of her mother.

Maybe I could stomach it if it hadn't been for that, but that completely destroyed Tris in my eyes. I have my own reasons for thinking so, but a parent who sacrifices any amount for their child, let alone their life, is an example of a saint. Tobias is just a boy, whom--I predict in the third book--she will have a falling out with because she's 16. Family is forever, by choice or otherwise, and Tris had something beautiful, that she quite honestly took for granted. 

The weakest part of this book is it's character development. The sentences are simple, but varied enough to guide eyes through text. No vocabulary was particularly challenging and descriptions were clear. Roth did a great job of creating a solid world by tying in elements that the reader--especially midwestern ones like ourselves--could affiliate with. It made the scenario imaginable and ponderous. Her only fault was the characters she made to fill her world, which were rather flat and sloppy. She has emotion there, but she doesn't convey it very well in my opinion.

Int the end, it's her first novel, and it's extraordinary for the amount of experience she has. It's not a book that's unpleasant to read, but becomes more so upon deep inspection. I would recommend it to people looking for a thought-provoking read around my age and lexile level. It's not hard, and is easy on the eyes and mind.

I'd give it a 7.2 out of 10, as after the fact, it simply wasn't my cup of tea.

Chapter Thirty-Nine

I still have not slept, with a 9:34 AM time tag and whooooooooo, I'll admit I'm a bit cynical when it comes to this book. I blame the grumpiness, but nonetheless this is the final entry, and the final chapter.

Love pulls him out of his simulation, or rather, limerence because I literally refuse to call it love. At the sound of her voice he fights of the nanotechnology coursing through his veins and comes to just in time to save shooting her in the head--when really, shooting him in the foot would have been a lot less dangerous. They take the data and destroy the simulation and go back to meet the rest of the group--or at least, what remains.

Tobias and Marcus are pretty tense but Tris is hardly in the mood for the old man's nonesense and pulls out the sass. They hop on a train, injured in tow, and head toward Amity to meet the rest of the Abnegation refuges. Dauntless is destroyed, divided into rebels and Erudite sympathizers, but that comes in later on. Right now, all they can do is escape and wait for the next move by Jeanine Matthews. 

"I reach into my pocket and take out the hard drive that contains the simulation data. I turn it in my hands, letting it catch the fading light and reflect it. Marcus's eyes cling greedily to the movement. 'Not safe,' I think. 'Not quite.'"

This leads to some major development for the second book, but I am hardly the type for spoilers--or coherent enough after this amount of sleep intoxication to get into that. With the ordeal over, now orphaned--but not boyfriendless, of course, Tris falls asleep leaving it open for the first real look at Amity. 

And what a "peaceful" coughdruggedup place it is.

Chapter Thirty-Eight

Tobias and Tris are forced to fight because Tobias is heavily influenced by the simulation. She stands no chance against someone more experienced and zoned out while heavily injured and emotionally distraught. She has a gun, and she can shoot him--though she thinks she can't, but she won't. 

"I can't kill him. I am not sure if I love him; not sure if that's why."

Now. if I haven't complained enough about her irrationality toward Tobias-- UGH. She kills Will without a thought, she kills the guards without feeling--but when it's her boyfriend of a whole like, two days, suddenly it's a great internal struggle. I can't say I'd be without conflict, but if the lives of literally hundreds of people depended on it, I'd shoot him in the darned leg or something; but, instead she hands over the gun. 

Self-sacrifice. Self-sacrifice. Self-sacrifice--when it's convenient. 

Okay, I'll be honest. Tris isn't my favorite character, not by a long shot, and it only worsens in the second book and I remain, having read that, that this relationship is destructive, and founded on very little. 

:I

With a barrel to her head, the chapter ends.

Chapter Thirty-Seven

The group consists of Tris, Caleb, Marcus and Andrew Prior. They don't have time to come up with a formal plan so pretty much they're going to wing it and hope for the best. Marcus spends time criticizing her choice like it's really the time for that but she responds with, "There were some things that I had to learn. Like how to be selfless, [bravery and selflessness] are often the same thing." Hurray for humanity! Divergence is basically a normal human mind as we know it, and it's nice to see the neuro-typical addressed in a positive light.

After jumping off the train just like the first day of Dauntless initiation they all hop down the netted hole--though Andrew can't quite keep his lunch down afterward. While sneaking through the compound they happened across Peter who isn't prepared to be jumped and is easily disarmed. He has been removed because he's seemed loyal enough, but Tris uses it as a chance to call him a murderer.

He does assert that he is not! And this much is true! There is nothing to suggest the he truly did kill anyone, or that he is capable. Puppy Peter remains, but gets shot in the arm.

Tris and her father argue about that, and Marcus chimes in with, "Sometimes pain is for the greater good."
This of course doesn't sit well with the girlfriend of his abused son but she doesn't have time to think about that. They fight their way up toward the control room that lies just beyond the fear landscape simulation room but he father becomes a casualty. 

Their last moments together are spent fighting and he has final words toward her that he never gets out.

Nothing could possibly be worse than that feeling, even facing Tobias under the simulation. Screw that; losing her parents definitely should be more damaging.

Chapter Thirty-Six

Tris is closely pursued by Dauntless soldiers, but only one makes it close enough to harm her: Will. She shoots without thinking, out of means of survival. The bullet lands right between his eyes and it destroys her just as much as it kills him. Her response to Al and Will's deaths are completely different, even though she feels at fault for them both. Will's death isn't chosen by himself, his is unfair. She decided that her life was worth more than his and this selfishness will come to eat her alive.

"He smiles in my memory. A curled lip.Straight teeth. Light in his eyes. Laughing, teasing, more alive in my memory than I am in reality. It was him or me. I chose me. But I feel dead too."

This pretty much what I just said, but Roth uses fragments to show a distraught state of mind again; artfully done, and I really like it.

She makes it to the safe house and Caleb pulls her in. Her father removes the bullet and sews up the wound-surprisingly intelligent of him, wink--and they are reunited. She grins and bears the pain saying that, "Of all the pain I have suffered today--the pain of getting shot and almost drowning, and taking the bullet out again, the pain of finding and losing my mother and Tobias, this is the easiest to bear."

This is a lovely sentence, great parallelism--well written, but the mention of Tobias cheapens it beyond  belief for me. She has known him for a month and she put him on the same level as the mother that died for her? Oh no, no, no. There's such a bitter taste to that. Realistically speaking their chemicals were not anywhere near mixed frequently enough for it to be love. It a crush. It is infatuation. It may be love later on, but at this juncture it is not; it is hormones. And her words just... ruin the beautiful parental sacrifice. 

The survivors devise a plan, half to flee to Amity half to shut down the simulation. Tris apparently has nothing else to lose, so she leads the ground without fear.

Chapter Thirty-Five

Tris wakes up in a tank that's eerily familiar. Sucks to have a guy like Eric as your instructor, after all. She's practically bleeding out already and she goes in hysterics. She is only sixteen; this isn't the sort of thing she's cut out for. She attempts to thrash her way out but that's impossible. Instead, she makes a statement in accepting her death just the way it is. She lets go of everything, and he mind turns toward God.

In the Tao Te Ching it is made clear that the Tao flows in everything, and water is referenced several times. The only way to touch the Tao is to let go of attachments--to seek it without a goal in mind, and those that can touch the Tao are given the greatest peace that no one can even fathom. The God alluded to is the Christian god, but I think that anyone of any religion can affiliate with the ideas of finding their higher power in the moments before death.

But death does not come. Instead the glass shatters and her mother is there, out of sorts, and holding a gun. She makes the connection a second time that her mother was never truly Abnegation and is calmly directed toward a safe house. Divergent as she may be, her mother is without fear, and truly Dauntless, and sacrifices her life to save her daughter. I honestly cried like a baby over this. No matter what it is, paternal sacrifice always chokes me up and makes me feel extremely introspective. 

Beatrice has no time to process the events: being saved, her mother's tattoo, the soldiers--her death--all of it happens so quickly that it is little more than a blur.

"Maybe Eric is right," she thinks, "Maybe death is like exploring the unknown; but, somehow I find the strength to stand up and start running.
I am brave."

She chooses life. She chooses to make something of her mother's sacrifice, and the was when Tris was redeemed in my eyes.

Chapter Thirty-Four

We meet our antagonist a second time and this time she speaks more--she is cruel, cold, and sarcastic, but so is Tobias, give or take. They banter with one another with some smart and snide comments until Jeanine gets angry. Tobias refuses to be broken by her words meanwhile Tris is dizzy with blood loss from a gunshot wound to her shoulder. 

Jeanine is actually one of the weaker descriptions that Roth has. Tris' description of her attitude and her words simply don't match up. "She is more machine than maniac. She sees problems and she finds systematic solutions to them." Yet, Roth gives her speech a rather emotive quality. Her criticism of Abnegation--using simple words like "idiot" just doesn't strike me as that of the most intelligent person in their entire society? He presence is strong, but he description is rather sloppy.

Either way, Jeanine monologues a bit about a serum that is immune to Divergence, deciding Tobias would make a perfect test as Tris is too injured to be of any use. Tobias tries to strike her but he's out numbered. Jeanine shoves the needle in his neck and he falls under, even ready to attack Tris as he loses his sense of surrounding and reasoning.

Tris describes her reaction as, "I feel numb inside, but outside I am a screaming, thrashing force of will."

Another A+ Sentence by Veronica Roth. 

Chapter Thirty-Three

Tris is too late to warn Tobias about the simulation and when she tries to tell Christina and Will they're already under. Everyone is under the simulation--and are essentially sleepwalking to the tune that Erudite computers are drumming out. Horrified, Tris can only attempt to match their robotic movements and not be noticed. Her mind is erratic and working in overdrive as she processes the entire plan laid out before her. She searches for Tobias, only to find him blank-faced like the rest.

Luckily, he's a good actor. 

Tris marches along and recognizes sights from her childhood, noting that "They are so different now. The buildings are dark and empty, and the roads packed with Dauntless soldiers. This isn't the home I know."
I follow a blog on tumblr where a man makes up words for human emotions that we don't have words for in English--or any language. I thought immediately of one of the words he coined when I read this:

kenopsia

n. the eerie, forlorn atmosphere of a place that’s usually bustling with people but is now abandoned and quiet—a school hallway in the evening, an unlit office on a weekend, vacant fairgrounds—an emotional afterimage that makes it seem not just empty but hyper-empty, with a total population in the negative, who are so conspicuously absent they glow like neon signs.

It's not quite the same, but similar enough to make a connection

The massacre on Abnegation ground begins and Tris and Tobias can only fall in time with mindless soldiers. That is,  until Eric decides that Four might be better off dead. Tris responds without thinking, as if on auto-pilot and threatens to shoot him. Her conscience won't let her shoot him in the head but she does shoot him in the foot. Four shoots his friend and the run for dear life, standing out like sore thumbs against a perfect matching order.

But, capture is inevitable. They are caught in a matter of minutes.

Chapter Thirty-Two

The pair of love birds split and Tris reunites with Christina and Will. They discuss their fears and future ambitions and the cutest line of the entire book is put forward as Christina's fear of moths is dropped into the open, "That's my girl. Tough as cotton balls." I absolutely adored this line and so did the entire tumblr fandom. The Divergent tag is fiiiiilled with it.

Ah, such a cute couple--such a cute... short-lived couple.

Compare and contrast time!

Cons of FourTris:

• They flirt in the worst ways ever
• They seem to get off of danger???
• Masochistic self-sacrifice is an innate trait of them both
• They're in waaaaaaaaay too deep for 30 days of know each other

Pros of Willtrina: 

• Their situation is the same
• Their relationship is light-hearted and not serious considering they have also known each other for a month
• They have contrasting and complementing qualities
• They (hopefully) wouldn't spend like 4 pages making out on a train

Okay, I'll step off my soap box now. Tris comes in first and Molly and Drew find themselves factionless. There's lots of celebrating and she kisses Tobias openly, and everything is wonderful--that is, until she comes to realize why strange injections are a bad idea.

And, the rest of the book pretty much broke my heart.

Chapter Thirty-One

Post evaluation Eric congratulates Tris but stops to give her an injection. Now, these serums have always made me queasy. I'd, of course, conform if I was brought up in their world, but somehow, injecting nanotechnology into the bloodstream just seems like a bad idea. Perhaps it's the blood infection talking but there are SO many ways for that to go wrong and and in the neck especially--talk about possible paralysis. 

That aside, it's really creepy, and even Tris picks up on that vibe. Eric is obscenely calm and collected, which gives him a creepy air. He's just all sorts of creepy, okay. I'm a bit of an ex-anime junkie, and every time she talks about his piercings I was reminded of a character but I couldn't remember who until right now--

Meet Levi from Katekyo Hitman Reborn! Aka, Eric if he was a cartoon.

And for a more human connection--given, this is a girl, but you know.

Anyway, that tidbit aside, Tobias joins Tris to congratulate her. They go back to his room and share an intimate moment involving examining each other's tattoos and Tobias shares that he believes all the factions have traits that all people should have all at the same time. So, like a regular human-being? Woah! Satire aside, this is actually a very big concept that's explored in the second book--but, I digress.

Tris responds with, "It doesn't work that way. When one bad thing goes away, another bad thing comes and takes it place."

I feel like I have a nasty habit of responding to quotations with quotations--but I'll do so anyway.

"When people see some things as beautiful,

other things become ugly.

When people see some things as good,

other things become bad. 

Being and non-being create each other.

Difficult and easy support each other.

Long and short define each other.

High and low depend on each other.

Before and after follow each other."

This is a concept very early in the Tao Te Ching, but I think this is the circle she's talking about. We cannot have good without bad, and vice versa. It was we consider as good and bad that's subject to change. Nothing is good or bad, nor beautiful or ugly, nor difficult or easy,  unless defined by a person by the other. Tris is looking for the bad, and so it exists.

She reflects a bit more and they kiss, before parting ways to prepare for the banquet.