Last Friday a very cool thing happened. A coworker at Shiny Job transferred her RSVP over to me for a screening of Divergent on opening night hosted by Veronica Roth’s agent/agency the New Leaf Agency. (Another coworker transferred her RSVP to workfriend so I didn’t even have to go alone.)
My invite felt a bit like a golden ticket.
Finding the building with the screening was much harder than it should have been because I got turned around and lost and the building entrance was on a corner.
Along the way I discovered that 6 1/2 Avenue is a thing.
But once I got there the screening room was pretty swank.
There were snacks and swag bags and other goodies (like a signed book plate–yay) that made the whole night feel festive. I also got to see some of the posters for the movie.
After enjoying some faction specific cake pops (Erudite and Abnegation–I didn’t get a chance to photograph the others, alas).
It was time for the movie!
Now I enjoyed Divergent when I read it. But my excitement about the series diminished over time and I was less and less inclined to read the other books after seeing how the trilogy ended when I came upon some spoilers. I also wasn’t prepared to re-read Divergent just so I could catch up on the backstory to book two (which starts really close to the end of book one).
But guess what?
The movie was really good.
I remembered why I loved the characters. I remembered how cinematic the story felt and how kickass Tris is.
The costumes were amazing. The actors were excellent. (I’ve been a fan of Theo James since his one-season series “Golden Boy” and he was great here too. It was a little strange that he looked so much older than Shailene Woodley but, you know what, they were great together and I’ll let it slide. And everyone else in the movie was really great too. It was a talented, diverse cast and really well done.) The factions and the world building were so well-realized. And I’m really excited about this series again.
Some things were cut from the book but it was all of the things that kept me on the fence about the book in the first place. Workfriend hadn’t read the book but she also enjoyed and followed the movie, so it’s a win in every sense.
I urge all of you to get to the theater to see Divergent as soon as you can and to get on board for reading the book if you haven’t already.
(I have Insurgent and Allegiant on hold so hopefully they’ll come in soon!)
Miss Print 