Book Review Thread

[JamJam]

So this thread works the same way that the Movie Review Thread works. If you've read a book and want to post a review, go for it. Hopefully this generates some interest. I'll start this off.

Insurgent Review (Divergent Book #2)​

Insurgent is the second book in the Divergent trilogy of books written by Veronica Roth. It’s first book, Divergent, has been picked up to become a movie that will air on March 21, 2014.

*SPOILERS AHEAD*

Insurgent continues on from Divergent at the time when Tris shot one of her best friends, Will. The story picks up right after that and you can just tell that you’re going to be in for a wild ride with this book. If you’re a fan of teen romance trilogies such as The Hunger Games, you’ll definitely enjoy this book. Despite its myriad of characters, old and new, Roth has done a good job giving time to each character as we see them develop throughout the story.

The Good:

- The Main Character’s Development.
Every good book needs a good main character and the Divergent series has that in Beatrice Prior. If you want smart, cunning, brave, and beautiful, you get that in Beatrice Prior. In the first book, you see how timid and unsure Tris is of her movements but in the sequel, it’s like we see a whole different Tris. We see a more cool, calm, and collected Tris that this book desperately needed for everything in the plot line to work. Everything about Tris has just changed and it’s great to see. The reader should be able to see himself cheering on Tris as she goes through her trials and tribulations in Insurgent. That’s what a great main character does, make it’s readers care what happens to them. Up until the end, you’ll be cheering for Tris even when things seem dire. This might be the best character development in a book I’ve ever read.

- Pace.
In every book, you get to the low points and high points. Sometimes you get too much of the low points that you start to get bored and wonder when things will pick up or why you’re even reading the book. Other times, you get the high points and it just tires out the reader’s imagination. With Insurgent, the pace is great. The flow of the events that occurs in the books just flowed really well. Just when you thought that something awesome happened, something even more awesome happens a little later in the book. In the first book, Divergent, it took a little while for things to pick up but that’s understandable because of it being the first book in the series in which the author has to slowly introduce us to the characters. But in Insurgent, everything just flows really well and Roth mixes the high spots and low spots very well. Just when you’re about to give up on the book (which didn’t happen with me), Roth pulls off something that gets the reader glued back to the book.

For example, Divergent ends with Tris killing Will which is a major deal because the two are best friends as well as Will being someone special to Christina, another important character in the book. All this time, the reader wonders what’ll happen once Christina and Tris see each other once again. Roth did a great job building up to the moment and before letting the readers have the chance to read that moment. There is numerous examples of great pacing in this book so the reader should never be bored while reading this one.

- No Character Is Useless.
Divergent introduced to us a myriad of characters already which is a bold move by author, Veronica Roth. However, she doesn’t let any character seem useless, every character plays a purpose in the story. Even if they were introduced in Insurgent, by the end of the book, the reader should realize that that character played a role in the story and played it well.

For example, Roth introduces Marcus, Four’s father who we haven’t seen until now. We know that in Divergent, Four is Tobias’s nickname because he only has four fears in his life and one of them is his father. He left to become Dauntless because of what his father did to him while he was a kid. Just that story alone makes readers hate/dislike Marcus and that’s all we can really ask for from a supporting character, to get a reaction out of the reader.

- Writing.
This might sound like a cliché but the writing in Insurgent was excellent. From the descriptions to the dialogue, everything was easy to read and well-written. Roth did a good job in her dialogue for her supporting characters, making them stand alone. What I mean by that is that when a line of dialogue is read, I could easily predict what character was saying that piece of dialogue. Roth did a really great job of making each character have their own attitude and voice. Not only that but because of how unique the Divergent series is, the writing to describe the environment had to be top notch. And well, I can say that the description of the environment was top notch. As a reader, I was able to imagine the world that the Divergent series takes place in.

Overall:
Yeah, you read that right. We’re already in the overall part of the review. The reason for this is because I can’t see anything wrong with Insurgent. There wasn’t anything bad with the book that I can honestly say was something that turned me away from it. The only complaint that I may have is that I wanted more time for some certain characters that I liked but that may just be my personal preference. Overall, Insurgent was a really well-written book. Divergent was well-written as well but I felt Insurgent gets the higher rating here. I can only imagine what the last book, Allegiant, will be like. Another review will be up as soon as I finish reading that one. But for now, thank you for reading my review of Insurgent.

Next Review: Allegiant (Divergent Book #3)

 

[Spidey Revivey]

I will try to keep up with my brief reviews. First of which will be on one of my personal favorites, The Picture of Dorian Gray.

The Picture of Dorian Gray is the only published novel by the infamous Oscar Wilde, and did not receive a full uncensored version until the year 2011. Controversial for it's time, many readers even suggested that Wilde should be arrested on moral grounds for writing it.


Main Setting: 19th Century London

Short Summary: An artist by the name of Basil finishes up on Dorian's portrait. Lord Henry admired Basil's work so much he took interest in Dorian, and started filling his head about mortality and how he will not remain as beautiful as his portrait forever. Egging him on, Henry encouraged him to pursue the pleasures of the flesh and not the virtuousness that made for Dorian's life up til that point. Being naive, Dorian Gray starts listening to Lord Henry, and spending more time with him.

Later, Dorian Gray falls in love with Sibyl Vane, an actress from a shoddy theatre, and proposes to her. Being in high spirits he tells his best friend Henry, who along with Basil and Gray attends the Shakespearean play she is featured in. She does so terribly that Dorian Gray confronts her after the play. She tells him of how she can no longer "act in love" now that she truly was in it. This angers Dorian, who leaves her.

Thus begins the first time the picture changes. A cold smirk is painted on his lips.

Sibyl Vane kills herself before Dorian Gray can apologize to her, setting in motion Gray's complete surrender to Henry's hedonism and sinful ways. He partakes in sexual deviancy with man and woman alike (which was completely taboo at the time of publishing) and often visited opium dens. High society starts to notice Gray's attitude and rumors form. Basil, the painter, confronts Dorian about it and so Dorian reveals his now locked-away portrait to him; killing him moments later.

Regretting his actions, he went to Lord Henry to tell him he no longer wants that hedonistic life, and wants to live with virtue again. Henry doesn't believe him, and leaves him be. Dorian goes back to his painting to see if it changed any, and it doesn't. It's worse than before. Dorian Gray stabs his painting and therefore kills himself- leaving his portrait back to the youthful image it was when Basil first painted it.


Main Character Development:

Dorian Gray starts off as a young and very impressionable guy and becomes one of the most depraved narcissists in English literature. Lord Henry played the Devil on his shoulder for most of the novel, while Basil tried to keep him on the straight and narrow. Sibyl Vane acted as a catalyst and spurred Dorian into Henry's philosophies completely.

But Dorian Gray is not an entirely evil character; many moments in the book suggest he is at war with himself. When he called off the engagement and went home, he slept it off and realized he was at fault and made to run back to Vane, but fate kept him from doing so. While indulging in his temptations, he still kept his high society demeanor public. Duality is presented in this tale to a "T", with the one famous line "Each of us has Heaven and Hell in him" uttered in the story itself.


Pacing/Writing: If you enjoy a story getting to the point, this book is not entirely meant for you. Oscar Wilde put a lot of himself into his novel, throwing in a lot of social philosophy at the reader that he dealt with personally in his lifetime. Most narrative draws on the aspects of what is acceptable and what really isn't, and how high society influences that. It's more tongue-in-cheek than anything else, and if you're not willing to know more about the author, than odds are you won't enjoy the book as much.


Famous Lines:

"The reason I will not exhibit this picture is that I am afraid that I have shown in it the secret of my own soul." ~Dorian Gray, Chapter 1

"The only way to get rid of a temptation is to yield to it. Resist it, and your soul grows sick with longing for the things it has forbidden to itself, with desire for what its monstrous laws have made monstrous and unlawful." ~Lord Henry, Chapter 2

"How sad it is! I shall grow old, and horrible, and dreadful. But this picture will remain always young. It will never be older than this particular day of June... If it were only the other way! If it were I who was to be always young, and the picture that was to grow old! For that-for that-I would give everything! Yes, there is nothing in the whole world I would not give! I would give my soul for that!" ~Dorian Gray, Chapter 2

"You have killed my love. You used to stir my imagination. Now you don't even stir my curiosity. You simply produce no effect. I loved you because you were marvelous, because you had genius and intellect, because you realized the dreams of great poets and gave shape and substance to the shadows of art. You have thrown it all away. You are shallow and stupid." ~Dorian Gray to Sibyl Vane, Chapter 7

"Yes, there was to be, as Lord Henry had prophesied, a new Hedonism that was to recreate life, and to save from that harsh, uncomely puritanism that is having, in our own day, its curious revival." ~Oscar Wilde, Chapter 11

"'What does it profit a man if he gain the whole world and lose'-how does the quotation run?-'his own soul'?" ~Lord Henry to Dorian, Chapter 19

You'll like this if: You enjoy classic fiction of the dark variety, and a character that battles his duality akin to Jekyll and Hyde.

 

[JamJam]

Allegiant Review (Divergent Book #3)​

*SPOILERS AHEAD*

The Good:

Tris and Tobias’s Point of View.
For the last book in the Divergent trilogy, Veronica Roth did something to spice things up. For Allegiant, she told the story through the eyes of her two main characters, Tris and Tobias. Each chapter alternated between Tris and Tobias with Tris starting things off in chapter one. It was pretty cool to see because by this time, we’ve now accepted Tobias as a big part of the entire series. Some may even argue that the Divergent series was about him but I digress. Sometimes, the reader tends to forget who’s point of view they’re reading from because Tris and Tobias have been built up so much together that they share the same story. On another note, it was pretty interesting to see what Tris and Tobias thought of a certain situation. For Tobias, we got to see him interact with his mother, Evelyn. If the story was online told by Tris’s point of view or told the way it’s normally told, I think we would’ve gotten a lengthier book. So not only did Roth give us something different but she made sure that didn’t bore her readers. Straight and to the point is exactly the approach that Allegiant takes.

Supporting Characters.
There’s just so much that can be said about this band of supporting characters. Like I said in my Insurgent review, every other character in the book that wasn’t Tris or Tobias didn’t seem useless. You have Christina, who survived until the end and served as one of Tobias’s best friend. Not only that, but Tobias could see a little of Tris in Christina that he couldn’t bear for a while because he couldn’t stand being with someone that even had a little smudge of Tris in them.

Evelyn and Marcus, Tobias’s parents were also very interesting characters in the book. In the end, Tobias chose to save his mother who he didn’t think would take the bait. But the scene where Evelyn chooses to become a mother was great symbolism by Roth. Evelyn failed as a mother in her previous life but because of the reset, she now can start over and give Tobias the mother that he truly needed.

Peter was a huge villain in the first book, Divergent. He was the best inductee into Dauntless it seems and was seemingly next in line to be a carbon copy of Eric. However, in this book, you can’t help but feel for him despite all the things he’s done in the past. The realization that Peter had about not wanting to remember himself because he knew he was bad really had me rooting for Peter here. In just a simple matter of events, Peter went from being a huge villain to someone the reader would want to root for.

As for the rest of the characters such as Uriah, Zeke, Tori, David, and Caleb, they were all beautifully written for too. Every character had a purpose in the book and didn’t feel like filler. Roth did a good job utilizing all her characters until the very end.

Emotional Ride.
I thought the first two books took me on an emotional ride but Allegiant takes the cake for that award. From people dying to people reconciling, everything was carefully placed. Not too much and not too little moments happened which can attest to the great pacing this book has. The ending and the epilogue really did it for me but I’ll discuss more about that in the next point. If you haven’t shed a manly tear from reading this book, then I don’t know what will.

The Ending.
Everyone wants a happy ending right? Well, sometimes we just don’t get that with all books. Veronica Roth was given a lot of heat because of the ending she chose but after reading more about why she chose that ending and even before that, I totally understand her decision to have Tris not make it to the end. All this time, people were sacrificing themselves for Tris but finally, at the very last second, Tris finally died an important death. Tris died in place of her brother Caleb, who she felt betrayed by no less. It’s that kind of writing that really hits someone. Despite hating Caleb, Tris forgave her brother for all the things that he did and was willing to die for him.

The part where Tris sees her mother asking if she’s done yet might’ve been the most emotional thing that I’ve read in a book...ever. Whether you liked the ending or not, Roth did a good job keeping her readers interested in her books all throughout. We can always think up of our own scenario as to how we wanted everything to end, I’m sure everyone does that.

Not to mention the goings on in the epilogue with Tobias trying to cope with life without Tris. We see Tobias wanting to take the memory serum but is stopped by Christina. She gives him a pep talk saying that Tris wouldn’t want Tobias to forget her which again might’ve been the end of me had I not taken a break before reading the epilogue. The emotion was there, the writing was brilliant, you felt what the characters felt. Finally, having Tobias overcome his fear of heights was excellent. It showed just how much Tobias has changed as a person, how much Tris was an influence to him.

The Bad:

Tobias is Genetically-Damaged.
We find out that Tobias isn’t really Divergent and is in fact, genetically damaged. Here, Tobias feels like he isn’t on the same level as Tris or doesn’t deserve Tris just because he is genetically damaged. I know that’s not how Roth would’ve wanted her readers to portray it, but in my eyes, that’s how it felt like. So what if he was genetically damaged? He’s still Tobias. To me, it didn’t really make sense and made Tobias look a little childish. I was quite annoyed at the fact that Tobias acted the way he did but luckily, this didn’t last for very long.

The Ending.
Yes, the ending is both in the good and bad sections of this review, it’s not a mistake. While I understand Roth’s decision to kill off Tris, the events leading to it totally killed me emotionally. Like I said, this book really takes you on an emotional ride. Not just in this one book but the entire series as a whole really plays with your emotions. Not to sound cliché or anything but that’s how I really felt about the book. I know everyone wanted a happy ending but sometimes, we don’t get what we want, and that’s what happened here. I could see this book ending happily but I’m fine with the way it ended so color me a satisfied reader.

Overall:
What a way to end the Divergent series. I can honestly say that I’ll miss reading this book so I might even read it all the way through again. But going through that emotional ride might stop me from reading this book. Then again, that could be the reason for me to read it. Nothing but good things can be said about the Divergent series as a whole. Despite the heat that Roth got for the ending of Allegiant, there are still many readers out there feel that what she did was fine and there are others that are still furious. In my opinion, if you get heat the way Veronica Roth did about the ending of this book, you’ve done a great job making your readers care about the characters you create. I’m sure Roth would do this a million times over despite all the negative stuff that was said about it. Well-written, beautiful story, what more can you ask for right? Excellent.

Rating: 4 stars

Next Review: The Darkest Minds (The Darkest Minds #1)