Four stars for Four!

Four has always been an opaque figure. Why it is called Four? Why he fled from the fraction Abnegation to the Dauntless? What caused this young, petite girl Tris in him? And why he decided to fight against the Dauntless, as the serum led them to attack the people of Abnegation? Many ideas of Four always remained unanswered, leaving room for speculation, though hints and notes were occasionally delivered. Now you Four experienced, two years before moving to the Tris Dauntless, as he himself faces his faction choice. When he was called Tobias Eaton and was the son of the leader of Abnegation.

My Opinion

The book contains four short stories, The Transfer, The Initiate, The Son and The Traitor. In addition, the bonus chapter "First jumper - Tris". "Careful, Tris" and "You look good, Tris." available. I will not go into here individually on the short stories, mainly because the first three seamlessly merge and both time, and content, are related. I would recommend in any case, the short stories to read only if you know the actual trilogy, because especially in the fourth short story, The Traitor, some parallels to the main plot of divergent exist. Accordingly, only three of the stories before the actual main action are to settle, while the fourth while playing - just from Fours view.

You can as Four sixteen year-olds know who lives in Abnegation with his father and is about to Faktions election. He's tall and lanky, has no friends and is a loner. As with Tris also takes with him Tori simulation test from. Immediately you can feel when reading that Tobias Eaton is a very different boy when he later are in the main story. He tries to attract attention and keeps a low profile and back. As a connoisseur of the actual story you know why this is and also the fast is in the short story clearly: Tobias hate his father, he even scared of him. His mother is no longer alive, so he needs his father every day alone confront. The oppressive atmosphere in Tobias family home was almost palpable, as his thoughts and his fear of the blows. Veronica Roth does not describe in detail how Tobias being abused, but the scars are felt and leave an oppressive feeling. Nevertheless, I found the entrance a little slow and even though I found it fascinating to follow Fours thoughts, so they came initially quite slow in the act

It was interesting to see how Tobias chose not to stay in Abnegation, but to go to Dauntless. There they met old acquaintances from the main story, such as Eric who makes a really angry, because he's a really lousy guy, or Max, the leader of the Dauntless, Zeke and Shauna, are Fours best friends. But you get to know also Amar, Fours first trainer, initiator, and the first time you feel the gravity of the meaning of "divergent". He worked in the main story but always very Dauntless, we recognize now that he, despite his terrible past, could never really put his native faction Abnegation.

I could Tris always suffer well, but she was also a very unpleasant protagonist. Therefore, it was sometimes nice to experience actions from the perspective of Four, as it was then also at Allegiant. In her foreword explains Veronica Roth that they have divergent first written from the perspective of Four, but it did not work, they have found no access. With regard to the first few pages, I have to agree with her, but after a certain time everything comes very coherent and fluent in many places together and I was wondering whether Four would not perhaps have been a better protagonist at the end. Not necessarily forever, but perhaps the author would have been the first band to describe the action from two perspectives and not at the last band. I like Four namely very happy because he has a calm, thoughtful manner, but also is not perfect and sometimes makes mistakes. His mind long remained opaque in the main story, but here you can learn more about him at last, his fears, his motivations. So, for example, why he decided to work against the Dauntless, when he learns that the Dauntless concoct with the Erudite a cruel plan. The hostility between him and Eric finally got hands and feet, you knew so far only that they did not like, because Eric was jealous of Fours Can.

The fourth short story takes place at a time in the Tris already changed to the Dauntless and Four is their teacher. You experience some scenes that we know from the main story already, from Fours perspective what has thrown an interesting light on some events (although I find it a little difficult because the scenes were partially hardly changed and they are so well a second time has read). Also the fact that the Dauntless / Erudite projects with Abnegation, is screened here thoroughly. I liked that you could witness how Four fallen gradually in Tris. The little things that he noticed that he admires her, it was really nice to read it, since you in Divergent always had only a one-sided reporting on the relationship between the two. The bonus section at the end of the book deal primarily with Fours burgeoning feelings Tris opposite and it was fun to read them, although they have sometimes voted me sad.

Conclusion

Despite a somewhat sluggish Einstieges and some repetitions in the fourth short story Four was - A divergent Collection an interesting addition to background knowledge regarding the divergent trilogy. Since I have always liked Four, I enjoyed it, to learn more about him and to get to know his thought. If you know the main plot already, so leave a little saddened a last short story and the bonus chapter, but it was nice to read how Four is in love with Tris. I forgive conclusively 4 of 5 stars.