Four Review

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.

Four was one of my favorite characters in the entire Divergent trilogy, so I knew I had to purchase the collection of stories about him. This collection goes four specific timelines in Four’s life in Dauntless, both with and without Tris, and then goes over some of the most popular scenes from the Divergent trilogy from Four’s POV.

I actually won’t go over every story in detail, since they include big spoilers for both the Divergent Trilogy and this story, but I will just rate the collection as a whole. I have to say, this is probably one of my favorite books in the Divergent universe. Four’s character just knows so much about the community before Tris even gets there, so it’s so cool to see events that happened in Dauntless’ past firsthand through Four’s eyes. Also, he is such an integral part of the universe that you can see how some of his own personal discoveries actually affected the faction and his own actions later on.

It’s good that the book doesn’t revolve around Tris’ experience with Four, as she only came in about 2-3 years after he had already joined the faction. By focusing the story on his own growth, I was able to see a more complete version of the faction rather than the decaying one that Tris joins in her story.

I also like to get to know more about Four as a person, and not as “the man with only Four fears” or the “hot trainer guy” that Tris falls for. We get to see his past, his father, the truth about how his fears affected him, and some secret events that aren’t spoken of at all in the Divergent trilogy. For fans like myself, this was a treat to read.

After this, I am going to have to go back on my own time and reread the Divergent trilogy and watch for this new information!

I would recommend this to fans of the Divergent trilogy (who have already read the books and therefore won’t be spoiled for future information!)

Overall Rating: 5 out of 5 stars