Review: Four: A Divergent Story Collection by Veronica Roth

Title: Four: A Divergent Story Collection
Author: Veronica Roth
Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers
Year of Release: 2014
ISBN: 9780062285683
Source: Purchased
Number of Pages: 208

Summary:
Two years before Beatrice Prior made her choice, the sixteen-year-old son of Abnegation’s faction leader did the same. Tobias’s transfer to Dauntless is a chance to begin again. Here, he will not be called the name his parents gave him. Here, he will not let fear turn him into a cowering child.

Newly christened “Four,” he discovers during initiation that he will succeed in Dauntless. Initiation is only the beginning, though; Four must claim his place in the Dauntless hierarchy. His decisions will affect future initiates as well as uncover secrets that could threaten his own future—and the future of the entire faction system.

Two years later, Four is poised to take action, but the course is still unclear. The first new initiate who jumps into the net might change all that. With her, the way to righting their world might become clear. With her, it might become possible to be Tobias once again.

From #1 New York Times bestselling author Veronica Roth comes a companion volume to the worldwide bestselling DIVERGENT series, told from the per-spective of the immensely popular character Tobias. The four pieces included here—THE TRANSFER, THE INITIATE, THE SON, and THE TRAITOR—plus three additional exclusive scenes, give readers an electrifying glimpse into the history and heart of Tobias, and set the stage for the epic saga of the DIVERGENT trilogy.

I really enjoyed this book. After reading the Divergent series, if you've read my reviews on those books, you should know that I didn't really enjoy them very much. In summary, I thought the writing was poor, the characters weren't written well, and there was definitely not enough detail. The combination of these three things really prevented me from enjoying the book as much as I know I would have should these three key things been included. (Writing, characters, detail- that's how a book wins my heart). 

It's safe to say that I didn't have very high expectations of this book due to how disappointed I was with the Divergent series as a whole. So, imagine my surprise when I realised that I actually truly liked  this book. 

Four was actually a really great read! Short, sweet and simple, but very engaging. I really liked the fact that it was written from Tobias' perspective, I feel like we didn't get enough of it in Allegiant. I loved the short stories, I really liked the insight we got into Marcus and the way he treated his son, and Tobias' thought process at the Choosing Ceremony. 

It was a very interesting and insightful book, and made me love Four even more than I already did. His initiation into Dauntless, his beef with Eric, and his detailed experiences in his fear landscape was particularly interesting, and I liked the path Roth chose to take when writing about these events. We hear brief mentions of them during the series, but to have it explained in detail was super interesting. 

It may be possible that I enjoyed this book more than the entire series. Perhaps if the series had been written from Tobias' perspective to begin with, it would have been much better in terms of writing quality and detail. I still believe the character development needed a bit more work, but overall, I loved this book!