Review: Divergent

Divergent by Veronica Roth
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Written in the first person, Divergent manages to get stuck in with its cast-based system, and pulls no punches in sinking you to the level of their titular character, Tris, going through this system, and struggling to find her place in this world.
For anyone that has seen the film, you might probably breeze through reading this, as the film is surprisingly faithful to the events in the book - although you do wonder whether they just copied and pasted from the book to make that screenplay, but that's going off point a bit!
Divergent is an engaging experience to read through, with a cast of characters and character arcs that come alive whilst reading this novel. A solid book, which will make you want to pick up reading the next instalment as soon as you have finished this.


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Day 12 and Day 13 of Inktober: Professor Hastings

I have been doing Inktober this year, but if you bear with me, I will try and sort them out, and make relevant postings. I was inspired by Dave Alvarez's Muppetober contest over on Twitter (https://twitter.com/DAlvarezStudio/status/1050440806010683393) to give doing some fan art of an obscure Muppet. I decided to attempt Professor Hastings from Sesame Street. I tried a couple of attempts at depicting his character. Whilst my intial drawing (the middle drawing) had more detail, I felt I wasn't getting the proportions right on the character. So I made a digital coloured drawing of my second drawing at it resembles more of the character. I was also pleased with the tartan effect on his waistcoat.

Review: The Night Manager

The Night Manager by John le Carré
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

For anyone interested in checking out the original novel having watched the recent TV adaptation, then be prepared for a shock. For a start, the novel is in fact set during the post-Cold-War boom, so expect many references to that period of history rather than the contemporary setting the TV series went for.
As for the novel, it suffers from many convoluted characters that clutter up a lot of the main narrative. Therefore, there will be chapters that deviate from the actual main story, and you might as well as feel lost, as there is so much to put up with if reading on a chapter-by-chapter basis. In its defence, it does ties things up in the end rather nicely, making up reading all of those chapters a bit rewarding.
For anyone new to John le Carré's writing may find it at least engaging, but may wonder what the fuss is all about after getting lost amidst all the exposure to such an expansive cast of characters. This is a good thriller, but you may wish to try another novel from John le Carré to appreciate how he does things.


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