DIVERGENT SERIES…YAY! by Lorrennis Leeds
My Choosing of the Divergent Series
Before I open the book, I stare at the front cover. It is beautiful blue with shades of grey and blue intertwined. With and artistic expression of wind and fire encompassing upon each other. New words. New author. What would this new read be about? What does the word Divergent mean? I have never heard of such a word until now. As I open this new title. This foreign book. I am open to a new read. Far from the normal reading choices I am so accustomed to reading. Cough…echem…Nicholas Sparks…excuse me. I have been stuck in a rut of reading the same material these last few years. So I open the pages of this new book. I smell the pages. Crisp and clean. I love the smell of a new book. Gosh I hope this is a better read than my last book I had to read! I scan the pages within the book, looks like it could be a potential easy read. I begin the first chapter. The first page. I read. Read three pages and to my dismay I am already on the second chapter. I re-read the first chapter just to make sure I didn’t miss anything…also because I am a slow reader who tends to think about other things while reading a text.
Factions? Divergent? Abnegation? These words are foreign to me. Why do these words enable me to want to read more? Who is this Beatrice? And is she going to be Divergent? As I continue to read I realize that in just under an hour, I am nearly two hundred pages into this new book. I have never been able to read that much in such a short amount of time. Not even with Nicholas Sparks books. I find myself reading this book during my spare time throughout my day, for hours during the night. I find myself not watching television but totally immersed in the book on the couch while my kids are off playing in their rooms.
Well, as you might have not guessed by now, I am reading the Divergent Series by Veronica Roth. I absolutely love these books! I can not wait til the movie comes out in March, I am so taking you up on that in-class offer Kim for a field trip to go and see the upcoming movie.
So I finished reading the first book in five days. I hate to talk about what a book is about as to the very fact that it can sway someone else in the actual reading of the book. But here it goes…it is about a world where everyone is divided into Factions: Amity, Abnegation, Candor, Dauntless and Euridite. It faction has a different purpose in how this world or their (society) is ran. Our main character is Beatrice Prior who is on the brink of having to make a choice of whether or not she is going to continue her life as an abnegation like her parents or if she is to choose another faction to live the rest of her life. Now in order to make this type of decision, you have be of age to take a test. She took the test but failed it, only because it labeled her for three factions instead of one faction. In her world this is known as being divergent. Which is strongly discouraged to discuss with others. She chooses to become dauntless…and therefore leaves her family behind. Being dauntless means that you have courage and don’t have any fears. A person that chooses to become dauntless has to go through the initiation process to weed out the weak or inferior ones. If you get booted out then you become part of the factionless society. A society of poverty and unhealth.
Since she has choosen to become dauntless, she has been the target of redicule, and of ongoing tests of strength and sense of self. She has proven that not only will she be first but that she will be a leader of change.
What I like about the series, is that it is very easy to understand, read, and vision in my imagination. The author gives vivid details within her books, to set up the scene perfectly. Each page flows beautifully. I am engrossed into this read and don’t want to put it down. I don’t have any dislikes for this series. In fact, not matter the more mature language, I am trying to encourage my sixth grade daughter to read the first book within the series.
I believe that this series could be for ages thirteen and up. It is an easy read and has some mild language and descriptions of scenes that are for a more mature audience of readers. The first book has some mild language that would be discouraged for primary school aged children, whereas middle school and high school students can handle this type of read.
As for resources available: the book itself is the primary resource, and then the internet comes next. This series could be used in the classroom of middle school or higher as a group read that could bring about a discussion of how society is ran and how it ties into the current way we as United States of America is being ran, what types of factions do we have that the students can see? I would use this series read in my classroom if I was teaching at the middle school level as a political piece. I would have the students to come up with comparison questions that the books depicts and what our government looks like as a whole. Do we have a population of Abnegation, Amity, Candor, Euritde and Dauntless human beings that are in our community, our government, our homes, our cities and so forth? I hope that as a future teacher, that I am on the right track into reading a book and thinking about possible lesson plans from the material as a resource…thank you for your time.