Tuesday, June 3, 2014

A-Z Marathon! Author of the Day: Veronica Roth

We already had an Author of the Day today, but in the future, nobody will notice.
It also doesn't matter. "Author of the Day" just sounds catchier than "A post about a certain author because I haven't finished reading The 5th Wave yet, and I kind of want to maintain an audience by posting daily, but this might not be posted daily, so don't get your hopes up."

You might know Veronica Roth because she wrote the Divergent trilogy. And you may not know that Four, a Divergent collection, will be coming out pretty soon.

For those of you who don't know, Divergent is a relatively new dystopian trilogy about a girl named Tris. Her society is separated into 5 factions, and when you turn 16, you get to choose which faction you want to live in for the rest of your life. So, she has a pretty tough decision because she doesn't fit into one faction. She is divergent.

Now, here's the thing about Veronica Roth's writing:
-I think that she is more of storyteller than a writer. I'll explain. This isn't at all an insult towards Veronica Roth. I just think that there's a difference. A writer is someone who I think creates very thought-provoking work, and every sentence is well articulated. I think that a storyteller is someone who takes you on this wild and fun and exciting adventure through words (or pictures, but not in this case). Veronica Roth can definitely write. She seems to have a pretty good vocabulary, her sentences are pretty, and there are some things in her writing that did make me think and consider the possibilities. But Divergent, more than anything, is a fast paced, kickass story with cool characters in a cool world and a cool concept. What I'm trying to say is that her writing is not a work of genius. It's not a very deep series. There are messages in the books, but it's kind of lost with the whole awesome-heroine-trying-to-stay-alive thing. It's pretty fun to read, though, and they make for cool movies.
-Oh, the plot holes. You can find plot holes in almost any work of writing. Without them, most stories would have no climaxes or satisfying resolutions, and writers would have immense writer's block. But the plot holes in this series are a bit lavish. Now, I didn't really notice them when I first read the series. I whipped through the series in under 3 weeks. During the time I was reading, I wasn't thinking very much. I never stopped to think "Hmm . . . that isn't like Tris's character . . ." or "What? That makes no sense!" But as soon as I was finished and I started speculating the books, I realized some things. I don't want to say much, but Allegiant is just kind of one big plot hole.
-No love triangles! A little refreshing in YA.

Overall, her writing is exciting, but don't speculate it while you're reading it if you want to enjoy the series. If you want to write an intelligent review, speculate all you want.

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