Event report- DIVERGENT PREMIERE

So, a week and a bit ago, I got invited to the premiere of Divergent. Needless to say, I accepted!

The premiere was last Sunday, and I took one of my friends from school. We got to Leicester Square which had been transformed into a Fan Experience area, so there were lots of things for people to do. There were lots of Erudite and Dauntless faction members running around, doing tattoos, initiations, aptitude tests and more.

I met and got to run around with Rita, who runs Weaving Pages, which was great. For a short while (i.e. a few seconds) I saw Casey (Dark Readers), Ben (Benjamin of Tomes), Jim (YA Yeah Yeah), Debbie( Snuggling on the Sofa) and Hannah. People who I knew were there but never got to see include Jess (Jess Hearts Books), Ryan (Empire of Books), Cait (the Cait Files) Jax (Making it Up)  Amber (The Mile Long Bookshelf) and Amber (Books of Amber) and   . Lesson learnt-busy film premieres are not the place to try and do a "meet all the bloggers". Maybe another time?

I am most definitely not Dauntless

Back to the day. I met Rita, which was really good. My friend and I did the aptitude testing, which said we were Erudite within a few questions. Rita and I went on the rock climby thing, which she won by miles. We were going to do some other things, but then we saw how long the queue to get into the cinema was already and decided to go join it before all the good seats were gone!

 I'm not sure, but I think we were in the queue for over an hour. Not complaining-we're British, we know how to queue. While we were in that queue, all the important people started arriving. We were on the other side of the square, so we didn’t get to see them up close, but we could see them on screens and hear the fans screaming (I’m not sure if my ears have yet recovered from the cheers when Theo James arrived).

look! wristbands! 

Finally we got to the front of the queue. After an Erudite guy checked that we were allowed in (I am so jealous of all the people who got to spend a weekend pretending to be people from Roth's Chicago), we got on the red carpet and chose a faction, and we got wristbands that correspond to our chosen factions.

Ok, wristband designer, seriously? Did you not realise some people might like to take theirs off without cutting the thing? I pulled mine on normal tight, and my normal playing with things on my wrist tightened it even more. I was inside the cinema when I realised that it wouldn't come off. When I got out, I realised there were spikes keeping the fabric once it had been pushed up. I had to cut my wristband off. Designer gets negative consumer feedback.

the sad fate of my wristband

We then got seated by faction. Erudite were somewhere in the middle, which suited me fine. We got to see a livescreen of what was happening outside, ie everyone's interviews on the red carpet. I got a bit angry when they asked Shailene and Kate who designed their clothes but not Theo, and then remembered "we live in a sexist world that values women by what they wear" and tried to get not too annoyed before hopefully enjoying the film. Then a short presentation of the people involved. Then the film began.

The film was really good. It adapted the world really well, made Roth's Chicago come to life, and

Of course, there were some changes. Things got cut, i.e. the whole eye stabbing thing, which is the only thing bar the major characters, world and plot that I remembered, and some things got added. I'm sure there were more changes, but I've not read this series in ages.

Trigger warning for attempted rape. It's short, and in Tris's fear landscape thing, and I'm glad it's in there because people will talk about it and sexual assault is a thing that we as a society need to talk about and deal with, and it's nice that she gets praised for defending herself. But trigger warning is there.

They made Four an asshole in this. I know he wasn't the nicest guy at the start of the book, but by the time they were kissing, I honestly didn't see why Tris liked him in the film. He does get nicer after that though.

I love the way they did everything, especially the testing, the fear landscapes... everything about Dauntless really! The acting was really good, especially Jeanine, Christina and Eric. I left with a strong craving to reread Divergent (first review here). And Insurgent (first review here). And actually read Allegiant. Film wise though, I am definitely ready for Insurgent.

Anyway, after the film, I tried finding people. Mostly failed (see prior list of people who were there but I never saw). Outside  we saw this guy in a suit who had loads of people crowding him and fawning over him and he was only a few feet away and we might have got his autograph or something but by the time my friend and I had tried to work out who he was he was gone

Anyway, it was a great day. Thank you hugely to Entertainment One and Harper Collins for the amazing opportunity, and I hope that if you see Divergent, you do too!

Book Review-Insurgent by Veronica Roth

Title: Insurgent

 Author: Veronica Roth

Series:  Divergent #2

Published:  1 May 2012

Length: 525 pages

Warnings: violence 13+

Source: Publisher for review

Other info: I totally loved book one Divergent (review here)

Summary : Tris has survived a brutal attack on her former home and family. But she has paid a terrible price. Wracked by grief and guilt, she becomes ever more reckless as she struggles to accept her new future. Yet if Tris wants to uncover the truth about her world, she must be stronger than ever ecause more shocking choices and sacrifices lie ahead.

Review: Ever since I finished Divergent, I wanted to know what would happen next. I also hoped that book two would be just as good as book one, something that happens less often than not. Luckily, with Divergent/Insurgent, I was not disappointed.

You definitely have to have read Divergent-it jumps straight into the action with very little flashbacking to the events of the previous novel. Which is good, but when it’s been a year since you’ve read book one, it takes a little time  to get used to it.

There is so much packed into the 525 pages that it’s surprising that it’s surprising It’s not longer. There isn’t a moment in the whole novel when Tris is not on the run, about to be executed, being forced to do something she’d rather not, and generally trying to stay alive. Everything happens in such quick succession, there just isn’t a convenient place to stop. Not even the end.

I’m glad we get to see more of Candor and Amity, the factions that Tris didn’t have aptitude for, because they wee fairly overlook in Divergent. In Insurgent, they get their fair share of coverage which sets us up nicely  for what we might be getting in book three.

There’s a huge amount of characters in this, a few new, mostly recurring and most  in different lights to what we had in book one.  Some of them were a little hard to keep up with, especially with similar names. It’s also a little confusing with Tris going back and forth between factions in various states of captivity. However, it was easy though to fill in gaps.

Once again, the writing is great. It details everything and gives all the characters their own personality, their secrets, and strengths and weaknesses.

The thing that got me most was the way that Veronica managed to make me feel for all the characters when they die. Especially the minor ones. General thought processes: somebody major dies-good for them. Somebody we’ve seen for a couple of pages dies-NO NO NO WHY. And considering I don’t normally care about character deaths, that’s saying something.

And the ending. What a cliffhanger. And now we have to wait another year or so for the third and final book. Damn.

Overall:Strength 5 tea. It’s difficult to top Divergent. Insurgent  did.   

Links: Amazon | TheBook Depository | Goodreads | Author website | 

Book Review-Divergent by Veronica Roth

Title: Divergent

 Author: Veronica Roth

Series:  Divergent #1

Published:  3^rd May 2011

Length: 496 pages

Source: Library

Other info: This is Veronica Roth’s debut novel. The sequel, Insurgent, should be out one day.

Summary : Beautrice “Tris” Prior has reached the fateful age of sixteen, the age at which teenagers in Veronica Roth’s dystopian Chicago must select which of five factions to join for life. Each faction represents a virtue-Candor, Abnegation, Dauntless, Amity and Erudite. To the suprise of herself and her selfless Abnegation family, she chooses Dauntless, the path of Courage. Her choice exposes her to the demanding violent initiation rites of this group, but also threatens to expose a personal secret that could place her in mortal danger.

Review: In Beatrice's society, people live in one of five factions; Candor valuing honesty, Amity for kindness, Erudite for intelligence, Abnegation for selflessness and Dauntless for courage. At 16, after being brought up by the rules of their parent's faction, each person must choose what faction they will live in, what rules they will follow, how they live life. As this may be quite hard, they take a test which should give a clear answer as to what faction they are best suited. Should. In Beautrice's case, she was equally cut out for  three. She is different. She is Divergent. She is dangerous.

She chooses in the end to join Dauntless, where initiation is learning to face and control their fears. And half of them will get cut and live factionless. She renames herself Tris and gets on with life in Dauntless. And discovers a plot against Abnegation. And falls in love with her instructor Four. A fairly typical dystopian book here.

But Roth has put her own spin on it. The world is realistic and easy to understand. At first it was a little difficult to remember which faction was which, but I got there after a bit. it was quite annoying that you had to wait until halfway through the book to understand why the factions actually exist. And on a complete side note, was this really Chicago? I never noticed... good or bad, I don't know.

The plot was good. I liked how it takes us thoroughly through all her training, and adds extra little sidestories throughout, not just concentrating on training and, in the later part of the book, the revolution.

The characterisation was very good. I loved seeing Tris get braver, and break free from Abnegation without leaving it behind completely. I liked the way that Four was a nice guy who had his own bad history but not enough to think “he’s pathetic”.

The romance in it was good. I’m glad it wasn’t a love triangle story, because I don’t think it would have worked with all the action. I also really liked the way that, when Four’s past is revealed, it all fits together cleverly.

I liked it being written from Tris’ point of view, where we see how she feels at each stage. She has her own voice throughout, which I think also really added to her character.

Overall:  Strength 5 tea to one of the best dystopians I’ve read, that kept me interested throughout, and waiting for the next.

Links: Amazon | Goodreads | Author website | 

In My Mailbox 5 and other things...

In my Mailbox is hosted by The Story Siren, and is a great way of showing off what we’ve got this week.

I only ever do IMM if I got an amazing mailbox, so here it is!

From my library I got…

• -        The Vampire Blog by Pete Johnson
• -        Hell’s Bells by John Connolly
• -        Cloaked by Alex Flinn
• -        Divergent by Veronica Roth
• -        The Deadly Fire by Cora Harrison
• -        Mirror Mirror by Gregory Maguire
• -        The Declaration by Gemma Malley

From my trip to London I got…

• -        Tim Burton’s Corpse Bride
• -        Rosario and Vampire Season 2 Volume 4

And from TokyoToys, for Carnegie Day because otherwise my book club may metaphorically kill me

• -        1x pack of pocky
• -        1x pack of Hello Panda

Yes, Carnegie Day is coming round! My book club is having a picnic...I'm hoping that Monsters of Men will win, just for Patrick Ness, and I think that Prisoner of the Inquisition by Teresa Breslin was also great. But obviously, neither will win because we want them to.

This parody video seems to have been doing the rounds lately. Its an extremely accurate representation of the love triangle in the Hunger Games. The first part anyway...

In Forbidden Planet yesterday, I found what might possibly be a UK cover of the Girl in the Steel Corset. I'm assuming it is anyway. It was a poster on the New Releases in June noticeboard. If this isn't it, please don't blame me! I just saw it and wanted to share it with you...Its very different to the red dress we're used to seeing...I love both covers.

And finally, just want to say that if you like this blog, please follow! We're currently on 92...if we ever get to 100, we'll do a giveaway! Promise!


Thanks for coming to Death Books and Tea. We love you. Tea all round.