Review: Divergent by Veronica Roth

Thanks everyone for the beautiful comments on yesterday's post. I've met so many lovely people since I started blogging here in March, I'm incredibly lucky.

I bought Divergent to take away on holiday, pulled in by its shiny cover, my love of all things dystopian and favourable mentions on blogger. Also because it was part of a three books for the price of two special in Eason's book shop on O'Connell Street. Hey, there's a global economic crisis on don't you know?

Whatever the reason, I'm glad I picked this one up. Roth's writing style is engaging and full of beautiful imagery that easily evokes a dystopian Chicago. Tris is an interesting character, though I wish we had gotten to know her family a little bit more before everything changed.

There's not much that I can say about the plot, without rapidly wading into spoiler territory, but I really liked this gritty YA novel. There were some parts that I didn't buy, like the trains looping round the city constantly for the sole use of the Dauntless faction, but generally it was a solid enjoyable novel.

The ending is obviously set up for a sequel, but I didn't get that annoying feeling that the sole purpose of this book was to set up the sequel. This is becoming very common lately with the rise of popularity of book series. I'd recommend any fan of YA or dystopian fiction to pick this up, it's well worth a read.

Oh, and I think I'd plump for Erudite, if you're interested ;)

T is for...'The Five Things You Wish To See More of In Fiction'

Ok, so this is a little bit of a cop out, but the people over at Paper Hangover are great at coming up with blog prompts, and if I don't take them up on it then I'll end up talking about how much I missed my broadband connection. Again.

So...

5: More non-white protagonists. I'm Caucasian, but one of my sisters in Chinese and another is mixed race (my parents have seven children, but I'm the only one that's biological). I never realised until my sister's came along just how unrepresented they are in popular culture. Though that is getting better.

4: Strong female protagonists. I like there to be more going on in my YA fiction than just the love story.

3: Less of a dichotomy. Some YA books pretend that teens don't swear, drink or have sex. Other books assume that all teens do these things all of the time. The truth is probably somewhere in the middle.

2: More elements from medieval history, but that's probably just the historian in me. Or the fact that I've just discovered Game of Thrones.

1: More books with the name 'Christine Murray' on the front.

F is for Finances (sigh)

I love writing. I especially love writing fiction. I think that I've managed to find both my voice, and the genres I want to write in, which is fundamental to my growth as a writer. When you finally sit down after years of good intentions, roll up your shirt sleeves and begin to write your novel, you very quickly realise something: it is hard work.

I enjoy all aspects of writing, the planning, the editing, the revising. But it takes a huge amount of time. And for those of us who dream of having a full time career as a writer, we start to wonder about money. Because while we would all happily type away for free for the sheer love of what we do, we know that love doesn't pay the bills. And either does three hundred pages of second draft contemporary women's fiction.

So, in order to enable us to live the dream, we have to make us some money. In my case, I write non-fiction journalism. It's not too bad, and I like to think that everything I write (including my mad ramblings here) strengthens my writing muscles. But lately I'm starting to resent the time that is taken up with non-fiction. I'm starting to fall behind schedule with my new work and edits, which is stressing me out a little. I know that this is the real world, and I've got to suck it up, but I feel like I'm stuck in a sort of chicken and the egg situation.

I know that I probably won't make a lot of money with my writing. I've read all the articles written doom and gloom merchants who tell us that the we should stop thinking we can be the next JK Rowling (those people don't have any imagination, it's never any of the millions of other wealthy writers-its always our good friend Joanne) and that we are statistically more likely to to get run over by a ride on lawn mower driven by a cat than ever make more than twenty quid from our books.

It's a sad fact, but to spend as much time as I would like to on my fiction, I'd need to be getting paid for it. It's a hard business to break into, but it's still worth a try though, right? Is anyone else hoping to get to a point where they could earn a living from writing?