okay, i finally did it. i read divergent.

am i a long way from the hype of when it originally came out? yes. do i care? no.

i watched the movie and read the book, so let’s compare.

as is the case with pretty much every book to movie adaptation, it was condensed. the trials and tests are way shorter in the film, and it didn’t really make a difference to the overall movie. while it was fun and interesting to see that in the book, and while it did remove some of the tension, i didn’t really miss it – so point one for condensing things.

HOWEVER, point for the book was the condensing of Al’s story. when he ends up in an ‘un-alived’ position, it was way more impactful in the book – the movie almost erased his character altogether. understandable, given how much they really needed to speed through. scenes like tris taking al’s place in the knives and how four actually handled that in the book vs movie was… different. different feels and honestly, i prefer the book.

shortening books is nothing new and i think i complain about it in every one of these comparisons… so yeah. there you are.

tris is very quiet. that didn’t translate well in the movie. the actress was okay, but it is a little difficult to fully understand the character when most of whats happening is inside her head. no narration i think was the right call, but it did make for interesting and boring all at once

divergent does end in a strange place, and thats because the series continues, but when it comes to movies ending on cliff hangers, i’m not a fan. id rather an ending that i can be happy with and then come back for the continuation of the story – something the hunger games did really well.

speaking of hunger games, this and that get compared all the time – so lets do that.

i think hunger games book was LIGHTYEARS better than the film – but i think divergent book was only a bit better. so that’s progress, and maybe gives some insight into how well both movies did. plot wise, they are very different – so no comparison there. character wise, i did actually prefer katnis over tris – but it was a tough call.

so, should you watch the divergent movie or read the book? both…? they were ultimately the same story so if you’ve done one without the other, its pretty much same same… except for expounding on some things in the book. if that’s what you want – go for it! i enjoyed both.

See You in the Adventures!
Christy Grace