Review: Okay, so I didn't love it, but...
Rating: 3 out of 5
Date: 09 17, 2013
Okay, so I didn't love it. The Transfer, a short story by Veronica Roth, promised to be a look inside Four's head. We'd find out more of his back story, relationships, and more facets to his personality. It delivered what it promised, but without that little something more I was expecting. I was expecting to see the softer side of him, the random glimpses of kindness that we saw through Tris's eyes.We already knew most of what was in The Transfer. There were no stunning revelations. I assumed, and perhaps wrongly so, that during his two years in Dauntless, he became harder in the same way that Tris did. Because Four received Abnegation in his aptitude test, I figured he was more Abnegation through and through. But I didn't see that side of him. I saw anger, hatred and fear as well as strength and resolve, but 16-year old Four was less sympathetic than I was hoping.Don't get me wrong, I have plenty of sympathy for a child who is routinely beaten by his father and abandoned by his mother, but the boy who would rather die than let the girl he loves be executed seemed to be missing.There are three more short stories to be released, so it's entirely possible that he began to show more vulnerability after his initiation. I hope so. One of the things I find so compelling about him is that he is tough as nails, serious, not particularly kind, but he is Abnegation and the glimpses of selflessness that he lets show, like the "thin line of skin above his belt when he lifts his hand to dry his hair," is what makes him real. I hope we get to see some of that in the next three books.