Book Review: The Sixth Faction
An era ago, I read the Divergent trilogy by Veronica Roth, I loved it at the time, and I distinctly remember struggling not to cry on the train from Seoul to the military base I lived on while reading the ending of the final book. Between the two big YA dystopia books, "Divergent" and "The Hunger Games", I have always liked Divergent better even though it was essentially the trilogy that derailed the YA dystopia genre1.
Well, the author has come out with a new book, the first in a duology, that reimagines the series with the main character Tris making a different decision (among other differences). It took me a couple of weeks to acquire it, but I got it last night, read a little bit before D&D, and then spent the majority of today reading the rest.
I literally could not put it down, and finished the whole 513 page book in the span of 24 hours. Which doesn't happen very often (partially because I don't have the opportunity all that often). Reading it felt like returning home to the young person I was when I first read Divergent. Like for the time I was reading, I was getting to experience reading it for the first time again.
The story was different, and not just because Tris makes a different choice at the Choosing Ceremony. More things had changed in the background as well, which was very interesting. It made the experience fun because I didn't know what to expect, or where things were going. But it was also the same, just from a slightly different angle, a different point of view, and it was so fascinating to see how the differences still brought certain characters to the same answers, the same events, the same decisions.
But I think what was especially interesting was seeing what happened that Tris wasn't there to stop. Characters that did or did not die because Tris wasn't there to change things. Putting her in a different location had many more far reaching ripples that I hadn't expected.
It's rare that a writer gets to publish an alternate version of their own story. I think many people will see it as a cash grab, or being too close to the idea of fanfiction for any real merit. But I'm half of a mind to want it to happen more often. To read more of my favorite books with subtle, or not subtle, changes. To see how things would be different under different circumstances and different choices, all directed by the original author. And to get to joy of re-experiencing the story as if it was the first time again. Haven't many of us wanted to be able to rewatch or reread something for the first time?
Overall, I give this book 5 out of 5 stars, and I will be sitting here, twiddling my thumbs until February when the next book comes out.
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That's a whole blog post all its own.↩