Review: Divergent by Veronica Roth

In Beatrice Prior’s dystopian Chicago, society is divided into five factions, each dedicated to the cultivation of a particular virtue—Candor (the honest), Abnegation (the selfless), Dauntless (the brave), Amity (the peaceful), and Erudite (the intelligent). On an appointed day of every year, all sixteen-year-olds must select the faction to which they will devote the rest of their lives. For Beatrice, the decision is between staying with her family and being who she really is—she can’t have both. So she makes a choice that surprises everyone, including herself.

During the highly competitive initiation that follows, Beatrice renames herself Tris and struggles to determine who her friends really are—and where, exactly, a romance with a sometimes fascinating, sometimes infuriating boy fits into the life she’s chosen. But Tris also has a secret, one she’s kept hidden from everyone because she’s been warned it can mean death. And as she discovers a growing conflict that threatens to unravel her seemingly perfect society, she also learns that her secret might help her save those she loves . . . or it might destroy her.

Debut author Veronica Roth bursts onto the literary scene with the first book in the Divergent series—dystopian thrillers filled with electrifying decisions, heartbreaking betrayals, stunning consequences, and unexpected romance.

My Thoughts:

After hearing Veronica Roth talk about her book at The Dark Days of Supernatural Event in June, I was super excited to read this book.  Listening to an author talk about their process and how they went about gathering ideas and writing the books always seems to pull me into the story more.

The story itself is about a young girl, Beatrice who about to go through the selection process to select her faction.  She does not want to let her family down but she knows that she cannot stay with them.  This is especially true when she goes through her test and finds out that she is something called divergent, but cannot tell anyone this.  She leaves her family and goes through an almost crazy initiation.  She meets Tris and begins to struggle with who her friends are and who is against her.  It also seems that there is a bigger problem out there and she doesn’t know what it is.

Veronica Roth build an outstanding world for this series.  I was impressed with the complexity of the different areas of town, some very familiar as present Chicago, but always with a twist.  I like her ability to take familiar things and make them different to fit what she needs at that point in the story.  For a debut author, this story was extremely well written without many gaps in story line or character development.   Relationships were a bit difficult because there was no relating to those of different factions.  I did feel in part that Beatrice did not “mourn” the loss of her family like I expected rather just jumped into her training head on.

My favorite story element in the story was the factions.  What an interesting way to take what we view as driving morals and turn them into a way to govern people.  I thought that this was a really creative take.

My Rating