A Divergence Of Opinion

Word of warning, this is going to potentially be a really long, really meandering post, so be prepared.  I try very hard not to pre-judge a book, or let other reviews or opinions influence me to much before I read and ramble about a book.  It is impossible to be completely unbiased as one usually picks up a book for a reason, the cover, the blurb, the hype, authorship, genre all of these obviously lead to some sort of assumption about the book, but over all I try very hard to read each book with an open mind.  Divergent (book #1 in the Divergent Series) by Veronica Roth is one of those books I have had a hard time reading with an open mind.  On one hand many trusted sources loved this book and recommended it, and they are usually dead on, on the other hand the whole premise of the series just does not work for me on a gut level.  So I figured that if I was to follow my own rules, that if I was going to comment on it, I should probably actually read it first.  I went in hoping it would surprise me, that the premise would have a plausible explanation and that I would not want to toss the main character off a cliff.  I was both pleasantly surprised and understandably disappointed in this book. Why you ask, well lets start with a quick synopsis then you can all listen to me ramble for a couple of paragraphs :-) As always SPOILERS AHEAD!!!!

Sometime in the future the world, or at least the people of Chicago Illinois USA (Happy Birthday Chi-town) have survived some sort of something and have divided into five factions.  The factions are divided on how people think to best avoid another war.  The Amity faction uphold peace at any cost, they are the hippies of the world.  The Candor group believes that complete and utter truth will avoid war.  The Erudite's feel knowledge is the answer to the worlds problems.  The Abnegation Faction is sure that if everybody were selfless war would be extinct.  Finally the Dauntless believe that courage is key to keeping the people safe.  Children live and learn the precepts of their faction until they turn 16, they then undergo a test, kind of an aptitude test that shows what faction a person is most likely to end up in, though that does not mean the person has to choose that faction.  For the most part children tend to stick with the faction they were born into, but there are always exceptions.  Beatrice is one of those exceptions.  She was born into Abnegation a daughter of a ruling council member (in this world only people from Abnegation are allowed to rule as they are seen as being above corruption and always working for other people).  As much as she loves her family, she struggles with being eternally selfless.  She takes her test and is told in hushed tones that she is Divergent, as far as I can tell that means she fits into more then one faction profile, in her case Dauntless, Erudite and Abnegation.  This is potentially bad juju for our heroine and she is told to never tell anyone.  Beatrice

chooses Dauntless as her faction and her brother chooses Erudite, leaving their parents with no children remaining in Abnegation.  Beatrice, or Tris as she now calls herself is put with the other transfers and made to go through a series of bloody, violent, fear inducing tests.  The recruits are told that of the 20 recruits only 10 will be allowed to remain in Dauntless and the rest will have to live factionless. We also meet Four, one of the training instructors, and Eric a sadistic young man who is part of the leadership.  Tris initially does not do so well, but she quickly learns.  Meanwhile the Erudite's have been spreading lies and rumors about the Abnegation leadership, attempting to start a revolution to take power from them. Tris's mother comes to Visiting Day and reveals that she was originally from Dauntless before she chose Abnegation, which completely takes Tris by surprise (GO MAMMA).  Stuff happens, violence ensues and they move on to the second stage of training. This stage is where you start to face your fears and Tris quickly learns to manipulate the simulations, tipping Four off that she is Divergent.  Tris and Four strike up a relationship that is actually kind of sweet and does not involve Four manhandling Tris into compliance with his manly whims.  More stuff and things, more rumors and mayhem, more skulking and secrets and then the final test.  The final test is to go through your fear landscape and find a way to face your fears.  The average number of fears is between 10-15.  Tris finds out that the reason Four is called Four is that he only has Four fears, heights, confined spaces, killing his mom, and his abusive father...who just happens to be the leader of Abnegation.  Tris gets through her test with only 6 fears (she is so special) and is then injected by Eric with a tracker

serum that he says is being given to everybody.  Tris and Four come to an understanding about life and go to the celebration banquet where she finds out she is #1 on the rankings and all her friends made into Dauntless YAY!  She goes to bed and wakes up when her bunkmates all start sleepwalking for lack of a better term.  They all board the train to the Abnegation sector with Tris playing along at being controlled for the sake of trying to save her family.  Four also turns out to be a hidden Divergent and can also resist the commands of the serum.  He and Tris try and save people, but end up captured.  Turns out that the Erudite leader Jeanine and the Dauntless leadership have decided to team up and murder the Abnegation council to take over.  Knowing that most soldiers would never murder innocents in cold blood, the Erudite's created a serum to control them and anybody else they deemed to non docile.  Tris escapes with the help of her mother who also turns out to be Divergent and was sent to Abnegation for her own safety.  Her mother dies protecting her, fulfilling the ultimate selfless act.  Tris finds her father, brother and Marcus (Fours abusive father) and devises a plan to destroy the transmission that is controlling the soldiers.  Along the way her father is also killed protecting her, again displaying the selflessness of his faction.  Tris is able to break Fours conditioning and they stop the transmission.  All is chaos as they head toward the Amity sector for refuge and to decide what to do next.  The End.

As always there is more to the book then what I synopsed (is that a word?) but that is the gist of it.  Now on to my self important rambling about why this book drove me CRAZY!  It was actually a well written book, especially if you compare it to books like The Maze Runner series.  This book had good well fleshed out characters, believable conflict, even the requisite love story had a decent flavor.  My big problem with this book is the basic premise.  The idea that humanity can be divided into one of five emotional/mental states is very interesting, but completely unrealistic.  I can see them trying it as an experiment, but I would guess that it would not hold any sort of pure form for very long.  Humans are made to think in various ways, even the most sheep like of people when pressed will find that nothing is as simple as a single concept.  I have a whole entire list of notes I made while reading this book and they kept coming back to the fact that this society cannot exist, humans would never be able to maintain that kind of discipline, nor would they want to. So 'cause this is my blog I am going to discuss some of the things I think would make this society impossible.  First off if you are forced to choose a single precept to live your life by, I'm pretty sure 16 is the wrong age to do it.  I know as a 16 year old if I was given the choice I would be torn between Erudite and

Dauntless...as would the vast majority of the other 16 year olds I knew.  Who wouldn't want to be the bad ass group, or the group who got to do things.  I cannot think of very many 16 year olds who would purposely choose a life of self sacrifice, especially when you go to school with the other factions and see how much more fun they are.   And then what happens when you grow up, I can tell you right now what I thought was awesome and perfect and wonderful, is not how I think now x+ years later and I am pretty sure in another 15 years my views will have modified again.  So you make a choice based on your impulsive, hormonal, young 16 year old self and have no other options until you die...not gonna happen.  Ok so moving on.  Apparently the main indicator that you are the dreaded Divergent is that you score high in more then one faction during your aptitude test...which the test itself is kind of dumb.  Not only that, but it doesn't matter what the test says you can choose a different faction regardless...so is anybody who chooses a different faction from their test results Divergent?  Also don't most of these factions actually have to spill over into each other, as one character says, it takes a lot of courage to be selfless...so again...wouldn't most humans be Divergent.  This takes me to another issue, their seems to be contradicting information about the rules of factions and Divergent's.  Sometimes the initiates are encouraged to think like other factions, they are told to do some research and be prepared, or to be honest or whatever as a way to enhance and improve.  Other times when a recruit does any of those things they are derided for acting like another faction.  And what about the transfer initiates...are they not automatically Divergent as they spent the last 16 years being trained in another ideal...you don't just lose that training.  Moving on to what the purpose of the factions is.  Apparently in this society if you are in a faction, there are a limited number of jobs you can do.  Abnegation is the ruling council and head of all the volunteer work to restore the city (from what I don't know) and make sure that the

factionless have jobs, food, clothes and shelter (more on the factionless in a minute).  Dauntless can pretty much only do security...and piercing and tattoos of other Dauntless.  Amity farms and gardens.  Erudite does pretty much everything else that is non menial. Candor...well...I'm not sure what Candor actually does other then annoy each other.  All the menial jobs like bus driving and janitorial jobs are forced upon the factionless who are treated like dirt. I hate that the only option to being in one of the five super specific factions is to live in abject poverty as a third class citizen, there is no recourse, no possibility of re factioning, and the worst part is that there are no rules on how or when a person can get kicked out.  Of the 20 initiates in Dauntless they are told at least 10 will be factionless by the end of the trials...16 year olds who had no idea how the trials work and they are screwed for the rest of their lives, not cool.  Again, I do not know of any group of humans who would allow this weirdly skewed society to exist (also if Abnegation were truly selfless, wouldn't the let all the factionless into their faction?).  The reasoning behind Divergent's being a threat finally comes out in the end...but this is a recent development and I am not sure if being Divergent was just recently recognized, or it did not matter before, or what, but again more convenient then sense making.  I could go on and on and on and on and on about how this type of society is impossible with out giving people drugs or shock therapy or a lobotomy, but I think you get my frustration.  It was hard because I would get into the story (and again it was fairly well written) and then they would dump the Divergent premise in their and all I could think about is NO THAT

WOULD NOT HAPPEN.  I am weird though and seem to be in the minority (shocking right ;-) ) Again, it sounds like I hate the book, but I did not, I really enjoyed the characters and their motivation, I loved loved loved the time they spent in the Dauntless challenges, and I even liked the relationship between Tris and Four (yay for no stupid love triangle). Also as a girl who did the Chicago scene for several years (and got myself the worlds best Hubbin while there) I loved how recognizable, yet destroyed the city was.  I will happily read the next two books (though I have been warned about book two) and hope that the author can find a way to convince me that put together the whole series makes sense.  I understood the comparison to the Hunger Games series and not just because it is a YA dystopian trilogy.  There are violent contests, friends, bucking the government and a girl lead who is finding her inner strength, but this is not by any means a copy cat of Hunger Games, it has its own story, its own setting, and its own premise.  I now cannot wait to see the movie and see how it stacks up to the books, and I will get to the next book in the series soon.  I would recommend this book to anybody who enjoyed the Hunger Games...just beware the premise.  I give this book 6 out of 10 lip piercings.

Do I let the premise of books take up to much importance?  What is the most important aspect of a book to you?  What faction would you choose?  What faction would you create? Why is every YA dystopia compared to the Hunger Games?  

Everything Is Catching Fire

Hubbin took me to the movie Catching Fire last weekend, based on the book of the same name and second in the Hunger Game series. The main thing I took away from this film is that the director took the title very seriously and pretty much set everything on fire.  Clothes, trees, people, villages, food, whatever it was all on fire.  But lets get to the good stuff shall we, the big question is always how did it compare to the book.  This was an interesting one for several reasons.  One I was not a huge fan of the second half of the book, so my caring level for the movie was already at a lower threshold then for the first one.  Second, this movie had a much bigger and flashier budget then the first movie did so instantly the costumes, sets, and effects were already better.  Keeping both of those things in mind here is how I felt about the movie compared to the book.  As always SPOILERS AHEAD! Also I am going to assume you have either read the book and/or watched the movie and not spell out the plot.

As far as the Hunger Games trilogy was concerned I always wanted to combine the first half of Catching Fire with the second half of the third book Mockingjay to make a perfect book.  I felt the second half of Catching Fire as a book kinda was an excuse to have another Hunger Games and it felt like a recycled idea.  The first half however, dealing with the aftermath of the games and the realization that there was never going to be an end, that even as winners they were the Capitals playthings until they died was pretty heavy and awesome.  The movie I felt went a bit further away from the book then the first one did, focusing on President Snow (I love you Donald Sutherland!) and his need to keep any and all possible dissension controlled. The movie

rolled through a lot of stuff pretty quickly, the victory tour, Peeta and Katniss being weird with there partially pretend romance, Haymitches excessive drinking, and the crackdown on District 12.  This all was explored pretty thoroughly in the book and was shown in pretty quick succession in the movie. What I thought they did really well was show Katniss trying to quell the rebellion by following President Snow's orders, she was never trying to incite rebellion, she was simply trying to stay alive and after the games keep her loved ones safe.  I liked the progression the movie showed of her realizing how much danger her family was in, how hard she tried to "behave" and then finally realizing nothing she did would ever be enough so she may as well fight back. I felt that they glossed over the whole Peeta and Katniss love/fake love/maybe not fake love story, which normally I am all for 'cause I am not a huge romance fan, but in the book the added tension of these two trying to survive in close quarters while this huge thing hangs there was kind of great and added some dimension to the typical teenage love story.  In the movie it was all resolved in the first 20 minutes with a quick chat and then poof all better blah!  I actually liked how they did the Quarter Quell better in the movie, with it seeming to be more obvious that the President was using the games as a means to eliminate all the victors, while in the book it seemed like a happy coincidence that the old founders of the game wrote up this version of the game long before President Snow needed to rid his country of the victors.  I wish we had gotten to see more of the other
victors in the movie.  In the book they studied old videos of the various victors to try and figure out there strengths and weaknesses and we learn some surprising things about various people. At the Capitol in the book there is also a lot more conversation on how the victors are used and abused.  Finnik especially is blunt about what the victors have to do to survive post-games.  We get a bit of that in the movie but not nearly as dark and heavy as in the book.  Also can I just say I am not a Jenna Malone fan and it sadly ruined the character of Johanna for me, which is sad 'cause I liked her bitchy only helping 'cause I've got nothing left attitude in the book.  The casting for everybody else was very well done and I am still in love with Stanley Tucci as Caesar Flickerman...seriously if they made a spin-off with him I would watch it every day.  The costumes were stunning, the makeup surreal, the sets fantastic, special effects well done and the camera work motion sick inducing...seriously they kept zooming in on weird things, I think I saw Katniss's left nostril at least three times.  Overall I enjoyed it, it kept completely to the plot of the book, adding a bit here, leaving out a bit there but nothing to change the basic story.  I hear they are going to make Mockingjay into a two parter (groan) so we shall see how that goes, probably more running around and angst.  I would recommend this movie to anybody who read the books and/or watched and enjoyed the first movie.  We have a couple more book inspired movies coming out so I shall watch them and post on them later.  Happy Reading Everybody!

Do you find that you lose all the tension when you watch a movie that you already know the outcome?  How important is casting to a movie made from a book?  Do I spend way to much energy on a simple pop film?

Are You Hungry for the Hunger Games Part 3

Hey folks, I had an amazing holiday weekend, saw family, Christmas lights AND I learned how to make authentic tamales from my Mom and Dad in law (Thanks guys!)  Hope you all enjoyed yours as well.  Well time to jump back into it.  I'm gonna finish up my epically long Hunger Games post today, so here we go.

Mockingjay is the third and final book in The Hunger Games trilogy.  It starts right were the last book Catching Fire left off.  Katniss awakes to find herself in the hospital wing of the long thought destroyed District 13.  Turns out to avoid mutual destruction due to both District 13 and the Capital having access to nuclear weapons, they agreed that District 13 would be left alone as long as the rest of the world thought that it was destroyed to keep it from becoming a rally point for any future rebellion.  Eventually a woman known as President Coin from District 13 becomes the leader for a rebellion against the Capitol.  She wants Katniss to become the visible human symbol for the rebellion, at the urging of her friend Gale, who survived the destruction of District 12 Katniss agrees on two conditions.  One that all of the Hunger Games survivors be pardoned, and two she be the one allowed to kill President Snow.  Coin reluctantly agrees to both conditions.  Katniss also learns that while her mother and beloved sister Prim have survived the destruction of their home thanks to Gale and Peeta has been captured by the Capital after the last Hunger Games.  Peeta is eventually rescued and taken to District 13, but has been reconditioned to hate Katniss to the point of murder(ah the classic I love you and now I'm going to kill you bit).

 As the book progresses the horror of war in all the districts really comes into focus, the whole time Katniss keeping the goal of killing President Snow, which she blames for all the problems firmly in mind.  As the war continues the upper echelon of the rebellion, especially President Coin and Gale seem to be capable of just as many atrocities (what a great word) as the enemy to win the war.  Finally Katniss and her team enter the Capital losing members one by one until only Katniss is left pushing toward President Snow.  As she finally reaches the mansion, which President Snow has declared as a shelter for the children of the Capital, but is really using them as a shield, Katniss realizes her sister Prim is there trying to bring medical supplies to the children.  While Prim is trying to help the children a helicopter drops emergency supplies, as the children and Prim reach for the supplies, they blow up killing everybody.  The supplies/bombs have the stamp of the Capital, ending any last resistance to the rebellion.  Still reeling from her sisters death, Katniss is summoned to a meeting of the rebel leadership, they are trying to consolidate there control, and as one way to do so suggest that they continue the Hunger Games, but instead of district children as Tributes, for the people of the Capital to send theres instead.  A vote is called and Katniss finally votes in favor of continuing the Games.  She goes and speaks with the captive President Snow, remembering an earlier vow they made to never lie to each other, he tells her that President Coin was the one who really ordered the attack that killed her sister Prim.  Realizing the truth, she also speculates that her friend Gale probably had a hand in the plan as well, and she will never be able to go back to a friendship with him.  Later she is summoned to perform the execution of President Snow as promised.  As she lines up her bow and arrow to take the shot, she thinks of everything President Coin has done to gain power and realizes she is just as bad, if not worse then President Snow, having lived through the horrors and still choosing to use the same tactics to gain power for herself.  Katniss then proceeds to kill President Coin.  In all the ensuing confusion President Snow is killed as well.  Katniss is "pardoned" on account of supposed insanity and sent to live in the rebuilt District 12.  Peeta eventually recovers enough to come home and marry Katniss.  The book ends 15 years later, with Katniss wondering if there children can ever forgive them for there parts in the Games and the ensuing violent rebellion.

Whew!  Now that we are all caught up with the story let us discuss .  I liked this book better then book 2 but not as much as book 1.  I again thought there was a lot of repetitive introspective (another awesome word) doldrums.  I understand the author was trying to show the internal personal struggle of Katniss, but on occasion it just came off as whining.  Overall I really liked the ending, showing that just because you are the rebel doesn't always make you right, another case of the winner writing history.  I liked how the author showed how easy it was to fall right back into known patterns, even ones you hate. I like how she showed how everybody suffered, not just the good guys or the bad guys, and in some cases you couldn't even tell who was who, just like in real life. I thought it was a good conclusion to the trilogy and am glad it ended the way it did.  The first movie is coming out soon and it will be interesting to see how Hollywood decides to portray the wholesale slaughter of children on the big screen.
What did you all think of the trilogy?  Is this post or series of posts way too long?  What are your thoughts on the themes of the book, and how they correlate to modern times? (wow that sounds like a college essay question :-)  )

Are you Hungry for the Hunger Games? Part 1

I've been wanting to post about the Hunger Games Trilogy by Suzanne Collins for a while, but wasn't sure if I wanted to do it one book at a time, or the trilogy as a whole.  After careful consideration and much thought (not really, but it sounds good)  I decided to talk about the whole trilogy as the story works best over all three books.  My initial thoughts after finishing the trilogy was mostly that the 2nd book wasn't really needed.  There were a few good revelations that I felt could have easily been split between the first and third book (a feeling I have with a lot of trilogies...except the Lord of the Ring: The Two Towers which is actually my favorite of the three)  Overall I liked the whole story but felt there were some definite weak spots. 

The author did a fantastic job of setting up a dystopian post war society.  The class divide and structure is clear and interesting and sets up a plausible environment for some the horrors that are so blithely accepted.  For those of you living under a rock here is the basic premise.  In an undetermined future North America has suffered from a major war/catastrophe and been rebuilt as Panam around the Capital, which is the ruling/political/upper class.  Surrounding the Capital were 13 districts that were populated by lower class citizens, tightly controlled and forced to work to supply the Capital with all it's wants or needs.  There is a more detailed description of the districts and such here.
Eventually the districts rose up and rebelled against the Capital, an ugly war followed ending with the total destruction of District 13.  The results of this rebellion was a harsh crack down on the remaining 12 districts and the heinous ritual called The Hunger Games.  To remind the districts that there insurgence was not only fruitless, but resulted in the total domination by the Capital, each district must offer up a Tribute of one boy and one girl between the ages of 12-18 to the Games  once every year.  The Tributes are chosen through a lottery system.  The Tributes are sent off to the Capital to be primped and pimped out to the public, doing there best to represent there district and garner support from the rich upper class of the Capital to potentially help them through the Game.  After a few public appearances, training, and skills test the Tributes are placed into the arena to fight to the death.  To keep things interesting various challenges are introduced as the Game continues.  The Game keeps going until 23 of the children are dead, either from exposure, accidents or killed by one of the other children.  This heinous (I love this word so descriptive)  ritual is not only tolerated by the people of the Capitol, but looked forward to as a betting sport, just like football or Survivor.  Okay now that the simplistic yet long winded explanation is over, lets get to the books

Lets start with book one The Hunger Games
This was by far my favorite book, the tension was amazing, the character development wonderful and the world building stellar.  The book centers around Katniss who has looked after her mother and sister Prim after her father died in a mine explosion.  Her best friend Gale helps her hunt in the forbidden woods (all good stories have a forbidden woods) to help supplement the meager rations they are allotted.  When it is time for the Reaping (this is what they call the picking of Tributes) Effie Trinket comes to do the official drawing.  A 16 year old boy named Peeta, the bakers son is chosen as the male Tribute.  Prim is chosen as the female Tribute, unable to watch her sister go off to almost certain death, Katniss volunteers to take her place.  The two say there goodbye's and one of the village girls give Katniss a pin with a mockingjay on it, which becomes a powerful symbol later on.
 They leave with Effie, and their mentor the drunken Haymitch.  At the capital they are assigned stylists to help them with there public appearances, Katniss is assigned Cinna who is fairly normal (and my favorite character) amidst the flamboyant excess that is the rest of the Capitol population.  He helps her become "The Girl on Fire" and garner attention for her quietly stubborn personality.  Katniss and Peeta, along with the 22 other Tributes are released into the arena to fend for there lives, and presumably take the lives of their fellow Tributes. It is noted that the Tributes from Districts 1 and 2 are called Careers, they are children who train most of there lives and volunteer to be Tributes.  This results in a higher then normal win amount for these two districts, and exceptionally violent, sadistic children.  Throughout the game Katniss befriends a girl named Rue from District 11 who she eventually has to watch be killed in front of her, this leads to Katniss respectfully mourning her friend.  Distraught Katniss runs into Peeta, who confesses his love for her and under there mentors instructions declares her love back.  This little love story encourages the people of the Capital to send gifts of food and medicine to help them survive (I love how she does not get all romantic here, but uses it to keep them alive.)  When they are down to just a few Tributes left, an announcement declares that in a change of rules two Tributes may survive to win the Games.  When it finally comes down to just Peeta and Katniss, the rules are changed once again to only one Tribute can survive and one of them must kill the other.  Out of desperation Katniss offers to take a handful of poisonous nightlock berries to save Peeta the horror of having to kill her.  He refuses and makes the same offer, they decide that if one of them has to die that they will die together each ingesting the berries leaving no winner.  This is unacceptable as having a winner is a way to keep control of the districts, and appease the people of the Capital so they have to let both Peeta and Katniss win.  After the ordeal is finally over Katniss receives a visit from President Snow, informing her that her little "rebellion" had better be the product of foolhardy love and not a sign of defiance toward the Capital.  She reassures him  her only thoughts were of saving Peeta, he tells her that she better make sure that he is convinced by her actions during the Winners Tour, or who knows what could happen.
I really like the borderline hopeless feel to this book, it made the little triumphs all the sweeter.  The horror of children killing each other juxtaposed (fun word) with the delight the Capital crowd takes in it is chilling.  I like that this book is chock full of contrasting views, from the districts forced to watch there children die, to the lavish viewing/betting parties of the uppercrust Capitalists.  For all the horror and darkness there always seems to be a little glimmer of light which makes it possible to continue reading.
Ok so this is getting to be a really really long post, so I will work on part 2 later.  Let me know your thoughts on the story so far!