This book was recommended to me by my friend Emily a few months before it was on the shelves. Veronica Roth is her friend and I thought the blurb looked interesting. Then I saw it promoted in a few magazines and ordered it through Amazon.com. (When the UPS truck drops off a package from amazon.com, it is like I hear “The Wells Fargo Wagon” song from “The Music Man” – it always brings such excitement!)
Divergent is set in post-war Chicago where its citizens have been divided into five factions, each known by a main virtue and each serving its own unique purpose in keeping the city going: 1) Dauntless – they honor courage above all and believe cowardice to be “blamed for the world’s disarray;” 2) Candor – value honesty and hate duplicity; 3) Abnegation – value selflessness and hate selfishness; 4) Erudite – value knowledge and hate ignorance; and 5) Amity – value peace and hate aggression. Each faction was formed to do good and serve each other, but as with so many good intentions, corruption can infest. When teenagers reach the age of accountability, they are allowed to choose the faction with which they will belong for the rest of their lives. If they leave the faction they were raised in, they must cut all ties with their family and start a new life in the faction they choose.
The story follows Beatrice Prior, a girl raised in Abnegation and her duty to “die to self” has been both an asset and a cause of strife. The book opens with her nearing her Choosing Ceremony and then the action begins. I do not want to tell too much more about the plot because it would truly spoil where the story goes. I will say that it closely follows Beatrice (or Tris) as she goes through the initiation into the next part of life and how she struggles that she is not completely any of the factions – she can be selfless, but she is also selfish; she desires peace, but she is willing to fight. It leads to a worthwhile discussion of how we are labeled – by ourselves or by others – and how we can have so many characteristics, and some that conflict at times.
If all this sounds somewhat familiar, it may be because you read The Hunger Games. I have seen Divergent compared to The Hunger Games in many reviews and it is understandable. “A dystopian thriller” (as the author herself calls it) about a young girl on the cusp of a life-changing event of which she has very little control. I adore The Hunger Games (well, the first one anyway; they kind of slide downhill after that for me) so I was a bit skeptical at first and that feeling hung around for the first 100-150 pages. Then Roth went a direction I was not expecting and I saw Divergent as its own book, not as a Hunger Games knock-off. Roth makes this story its own and while I can see the comparisons, her book is different and should be opened up on its own merit, not on the coattails of another successful Young Adult story.
It is my understanding that Divergent is the first in a trilogy and the book lends itself to a sequel. While the book is near 500 pages, it is fast read and definitely a Young Adult (YA) book with the teenage girl struggling who figure out who she is and who she is becoming – and, of course, there is a boy.
I give it a 4 – try to find it at the library or borrow it (locals – I have it).
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