The history of Divergent is so interesting to me. First, The Hunger Games was published. Then, at the precise right moment in time, a college student wrote a rip-off novel during her winter break. She went back to school, and before the school year ended, she had gotten an agent and a publishing deal and her book was being rushed to print, to debut a year later. And she got a bunch of fucking money. But she was stuck having to finish this series so she did these bizarre twists to try to explain what was going on (none of which make sense if you think about them), then at the end, she was like, "Fuck it. The main character dies
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Yeah, and she started shoehorning evangelical Christianity themes into it. It was weird to see Roth was raised agnostic but converted to evangelical Christianity after a boy she liked in HS or something invited her to church.
(IE Tris became Jesus basically in the 3rd book, and early on, she was dead well before the end.)
(It also helped Divergent that not only was she ripping off Hunger Games, she threw in the Harry Potter sorting hat and the entire marketing scheme was done.)
Oh yeah, my theory about why these books were snapped up and got the marketing push they did is because of the sorting aspect. The problem is that all the houses/groups/whatever in Divergent suck. They're all just different flavors of cult. The HP houses are not equal, but you could understand why someone would identify with each of them, even if the reason is contrarianism or just the aesthetic. Why would anyone want to be in the Always Telling the Truth house in Divergent?
I had a Divergent phase when the first movie came out because I found Theo James gorgeous. And even with that, I had no idea who Tris was 5 minutes ago.
but i've been listening to the hunger games audiobook while driving recently (the newer one narrated by tatiana maslany) and there's so much of this first book i remember. like every cliffhanger of every chapter, i remember. and the last time i read the book was probably 9 years ago so i'm impressed with suzanne collins's ability to write memorable cliffhangers lol.
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Yeah, and she started shoehorning evangelical Christianity themes into it. It was weird to see Roth was raised agnostic but converted to evangelical Christianity after a boy she liked in HS or something invited her to church.
(IE Tris became Jesus basically in the 3rd book, and early on, she was dead well before the end.)
(It also helped Divergent that not only was she ripping off Hunger Games, she threw in the Harry Potter sorting hat and the entire marketing scheme was done.)
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but i've been listening to the hunger games audiobook while driving recently (the newer one narrated by tatiana maslany) and there's so much of this first book i remember. like every cliffhanger of every chapter, i remember. and the last time i read the book was probably 9 years ago so i'm impressed with suzanne collins's ability to write memorable cliffhangers lol.
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