I've learned a couple of lessons about popularity and books over the years.
The first is that popular doesn't always equal good. Pretty much everyone realizes this the first time they re-visit a book they just loved when all of their friends were reading it, and it turns out to be... um... not quite as good as remembered. And some books are popular, as far as I can tell, because they're so horrendously bad. It's like watching a train wreck.
The second lesson is that popular doesn't always equal bad. When Harry Potter was first coming out, I stuck my nose in the air, because I couldn't figure out why kids were reading that instead of decent fantasy, like Tolkien or Lewis. Hint: Because it's good. Really good. Now, seven years after the last one came out, it still has a solid audience. The Hunger Games books are also really good -- yes, the Games parts are as violent and soul-destroying as advertised (so is Lord of the Flies, one of my favorite books and the one I always flash on first with THG), but that's the point. What HG really is, is an indictment of soul-numbing culture, and a celebration (which isn't really the right word in context) of the power to reshape it. It's a narrative about narrative, and it's uncomfortable to read in the very best way.
I had to finally read Divergent so I could do a program on it. I was hoping that it would be more like the latter than the former -- that as soon as I started reading it, I'd say, "Oh, so that's why everyone's nuts about this book!" Not so much.
Divergent has been compared to The Hunger Games, and the movie is certainly being marketed to the HG audience (so were the books, with their round-symbol covers). Here's what they have in common: Geographically specific American dystopia. Female lead. Really, that's it. It's really much more closely related to Harry Potter, with dystopian future Chicago standing in for Hogwarts and factions standing in for the Houses (Dauntless and Abnegation=Gryffindor, Erudite=Ravenclaw, Amity=Hufflepuff). It seems to be a sort of long argument with the Sorting Hat, using the common fandom argument about whether or not sorting the Houses by personality is a good idea. Spoiler: the author doesn't think so, and in fact ratchets the argument up a lot by making the factions into the worst possible version of the Houses. The "Divergent," who don't fit into any class, seem to be the "they'll do what's needed to win" fandom version of Slytherin. I'm not sure on Candor.
This isn't to say it's a bad book. It's not. There's nothing wrong with playing with ideas you pick up from other sources and re-combining them. That's how new things get created. The serial numbers aren't as expertly removed as I'd like, but I can't say I'd do any better at it. People who've heard my fannish rants would probably recognize them right away in an original story, too.
My issue with Divergent is that it never really "woke up" for me. Presumably, it does for other people. But I don't find its argument very interesting or compelling -- I was never interested in the Sorting Hat argument in HP, either -- and I couldn't keep the characters straight right away, which tends to irritate me. As a lead character, Tris had some potential, and the conflict between her Abnegation tendencies and her Dauntless tendencies (self-sacrificial courage vs. reckless courage) was interesting, but the points she wrestled with that were the only ones that really sparked. More to the point, I can't figure out why she was attracted to Dauntless in the first place. It didn't really fit with anything other than, "Because I said so," which doesn't tend to work. Her love interest, Tobias -- whose real identity was hidden for half the book with all the subtlety an elephant on my patio -- is a thundering bore.
One of the reasons it's hard to keep track of the characters is that they all have roughly the same speech patterns. I had to check up the page several times to see who was supposed to be talking. I like dialogue best when you can leave it untagged for a page or so without confusing the reader.
The main plot, with the Erudite faction trying to get the Dauntless to kill the Abnegation because they wanted control of the government (Tris, being a Divergent, is able to resist their mind control)... it's just sort of... there. Unlike the bizarre satire of real government in HP, or the warped government of The Hunger Games, we don't get a sense of how the government operates in the first place, so a hostile takeover doesn't feel very vital, except insofar as we know, from external input, that it's most likely a bad idea. We know this mostly because we're told that the people trying to take over are the bad guys, as opposed being the noble rebels. It's not enough to really make me care about the main action. During the final battle, I took a break to check Facebook and do a little Wiki-walking on TV Tropes. Then I played with the cat, checked comments on a story, then went back and read a few more pages, got distracted again, then finally finished.
Maybe it's me. It could be.
The point is, I've certainly read worse books. (Though some of them are well-reviewed and have prizes, so again, maybe it's me.) There's nothing specifically wrong with Divergent, and I'll read the sequels (I caught up on the spoilers, so I'll have the requisite knowledge for the program). It's just the third lesson about popularity and books:
Sometimes, it means "meh."
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