Finishing the Divergent series

Insurgent, Book #2

Allegiant, Book #3

Young Adult novels by Veronica Roth

You won't like the last one, they said. The ending is terrible, they said. I have to read it anyway, I said. I have to finish the series. But I did what I do. I read the ending first.

Let me back up here. You can read my thoughts on the first book in the series here. These young adult novels are the next big thing after Harry Potter, Twilight, and Hunger Games. Yeah, That Big. The movie of the first book comes out next month. And I must agree, the first and second book live up to the hype. The writing is a little clunky, in my opinion, but written at an appropriate level for the young adult crowd, and the plot is break-neck fast.

Tris, the main character, lives in a city that we come to believe is Chicago, but with only enough population to fill a portion of the city, so it's probably the future. That population is divided into five factions who each venerate one character trait. On Choosing Day, 16 year olds can choose the faction they were raised in or a different one. Tris does just that, moving from Abegnation, a humble service-based faction, to Dauntless, a thrill-seeking faction that provides the city's security.  Tris goes through a great deal of self-discovery, finding out she is special even among the rare people who switch factions, at the same time that she is discovering some hidden truths about her city. 

That's the premise of the first book and the essential ingredients of the next one. With similarities to all the popular series I listed above (choosing day and factions are like Harry Potter, the romance a bit like Twilight, the female heroine in a dsytopian society like Hunger Games), it's engrossing. It also has a fairly strong female protagonist, a teenage romantic relationship in which they decide not to have sex before they're ready, and a realistic treatment of values and ethics in characters who are neither all good or all bad. I would and did recommend it for teenagers I know.

And then the third book hits. First, the setting changes. I can't say how or where without ruining a huge plot twist, but I think that change alone takes away a lot of the intrigue. Second, Roth adds another voice to the narration. Since I read the end first, I knew that was important to the outcome of the story, but it's still disconcerting after being accustomed to only one voice. Also, the writing gets even sloppier, like Roth was in a big old hurry for her publishers. Even the plot, which could continue to be intriguing, goes so far down a new tunnel of morals and science at war with each other that I was often confused. No wonder most of her teenage readers were disheartened. And finally, from the teacher/mom/Young Life leader standpoint, I was incredibly frustrated that the main characters ended up having sex. It's more implied than described, but still. I don't think it's necessary to the story and now I can't recommend that my students read this.

If, like me, the laundry list of faults doesn't discourage you from reading the third book, I'd love to hear your thoughts. One question I'm struggling with after reading it is how much a writer should aim to please her readers. Maybe this ending is where Roth was going all along, and she stuck to her guns and made it end the way she wanted. If so, I applaud her. But it feels to me more like she didn't know where to go and took the less obvious but more shock-inducing road. If so, she sold out anyway, so she should better have stuck to an end that would give everyone what they wanted. 

Four in One

I'm feeling more than a little divided these days. A week and a half ago, I went back to work after taking maternity leave with my third child. Of course, being a teacher, I really went back to work long before that, envisioning how my classes would go, meeting with colleagues, and finally, the long last weekend before, doing all my copying and laminating and organizing. And did you hear that this was maternity leave with my THIRD child? So now I'm responsible for the hearts and reading levels of ninety kiddos over the course of a school day and the ENTIRE well being of three others 24 hours a day. I feel like I embody the phrase "walking around with your heart outside your body." More than the sheer amount of work and never-ending potential for all hell to break lose, it's the emotional friction between my career and my kids, my life's calling to teach and my (willing) surrender of my soul to my family. So yeah, I'm a little divided.

And distracted.

Is it any wonder that I have read three and one-twentieth books of a vastly different nature over the last few weeks? I mean, I know you forgive me for not writing until now. I know you kind of like the four-in-one posts, right? It's just that this list of books is pretty diverse. Here goes.

Flight Behavior 

Novel by Barbara Kingsolver

This is the one-twentieth of a book I read. I did the math. I read to page 35 out of 671. It's not truly that long; I somehow ended up with a large print edition from the library. So actually, I probably read far less than 35 real pages, which isn't that much effort to give to a book before quitting. But I have fallen so much in love with a few of Barbara Kingsolver's other books (The Lacuna, The Poisonwood Bible, amazing!) that it felt wrong to not love this one. I can't even really tell you what it's about. Some red headed woman is about to have an affair and stops because she sees some weird thing in the hills, which I think turns out to be butterflies, but I don't know. Sorry. It didn't grab me, I'm tired, I quit. May you be a better reader than I and give it more than 35 large print pages to hold your attention. 

Divergent 

Young Adult Novel by Veronica Roth

The OPPOSITE of boring, this book may give you whiplash. It was just what I needed to take my mind off my...mind. The fact that it kept me up reading until 12:30 at night is my only complaint. (Yes, that's really late for me, I have a baby and a two year old and I'm a teacher. Stop calling me old.) Anyway, you may know this is coming out as a movie soon and is a trilogy that rivets some young readers almost as much as Hunger Games. It's similar in the futuristic dystopian setting and female lead but different in the writing (not quite as tightly constructed) and characters (the female lead takes a while to come into herself and even seems a bit damsel-ish like Bella from Twilight at first). The message is awesome for teenagers and I'm glad I listened to my many students and cousins and one nephew who literally pushed it into my hands to read. One warning--I've heard from EVERYONE that the third one disappoints. I'm still going to read it, though.

Carry on Warrior: Thoughts on Life Unarmed

Memoir by Glennon Doyle Melton

A memoir is not that much of a departure from my norm. They're really the only non-fiction I like, probably because they are still narratives and often read like fiction. But this book veers more toward collected essays (blog posts, actually) and a bit of self-help, which I totally stay away from as it usually makes me feel worse about myself instead of better. Not true here. I knew I loved Glennon from her blog Momastery.com. She is truly humble and genuine in her pursuit of being the most...the least...just herself. Which is a recovering addict, mom, wife, Jesus follower. She calls us all be ourselves and let others be themselves, with grace and mercy and frozen pizzas. I love her piece called Carpe Don't, telling parents of young kids that it's okay to not savor every moment. You can't do it. Just look your kids in the eye when they talk to you and carry on with the rest of the crazy. Think I needed to hear that? Ayup. 

The Last Runaway

Novel by Tracy Chevalier

First of all, if you read this, get the one with the other cover. This is the one I read and it's weird. I don't think it looks like a facial expression the main character would make. Her name is Honor and she's Quaker, which just might be an element of the next book I'm working on writing, so I was very intrigued. My Quakers would be 1950's American, though, and she's 1850's British but moves to America. She follows her sister, who dies, leaving her in rural America without family or friends, just the uptight Quaker community her sister's fiancee lives in. Honor gets involved in the Underground Railroad and has to decide which path to follow in life, hers or that of the people around her. I was riveted by the story of slavery that is told and realized it's still very relevant today, with people in misery in so many parts of the world, even our towns, and the choices we have about how to get involved. Chevalier is an interesting writer, and she doesn't make the obvious choices or follow typical story lines, so expect to be surprised about which way the story goes. Honor truly makes her own choices, even when it seems like her choices are laid out first by community and then by literature. I wish I could meet her.

Thank you for letting me unload the little bit of my mind that was storing up thoughts on these books. I'm sure I could use the space for focusing on school or family, but instead I'm going to go ahead and read the second Divergent book and have a glass of wine.