Divergent by Veronica Roth

All About It:

In Beatrice Prior’s dystopian Chicago world, 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 alongside her fellow initiates to live out the choice they have made. Together they must undergo extreme physical tests of endurance and intense psychological simulations, some with devastating consequences. As initiation transforms them all, Tris must determine who her friends really are—and where, exactly, a romance with a sometimes fascinating, sometimes exasperating 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 unrest and growing conflict that threaten to unravel her seemingly perfect society, she also learns that her secret might help her save those she loves . . . or it might destroy her.

What I Thought:

Dystopian worlds are the new Vampires. They are everywhere lately. You have Matched by Ally Condie; Delirium by Lauren Oliver; Across the Universe by Beth Revis and the list can go on and on. All of them are different in some way, shape or form. Just like each vampire race in all the series to follow Twilight have their own special characteristics.
Today I finished Divergent by Veronica Roth. Let me just say it left me STUNNED! It was absolutely different than I would have expected and SO much better. Instead of all the world being talked about as the same, we have one city, a city known to us today as Chicago, but a very different place in Roth’s future world. We never get told what goes on outside of the city that the main character, Tris, lives in. The farthest her community has ever traveled is to the orchard outside the fenced in city. There are five factions that the community is broken up into inside these fences. There are the Abnegation, Candor, Erudite, Amity, and Dauntless. Each values a different characteristic. The Abnegation value selflessness, the Erudite knowledge, Amity peace and the dauntless value courage and fearlessness, while the Candor value truth. At the age of 16 each member of the community gets to choose which faction they want to belong to. They then go through the initiations. Tris, was born into Abnegation but never really felt she was cut out for it. When the choosing ceremony came, she shocked her parents, two Abnegation leaders, and decided on the Dauntless. The entirety of the story follows Tris through the grueling initiation process in which there will only be 10 who survive and do not get cut. If cut the initiates become factionless. This is the worst fate imaginable to the characters of this world. There are three stage that must be completed, each worse than the one before. Throughout the training Tris makes friends, enemies, and finds love in the unexpected initiate trainer, Four. Divergent has it all, love, betrayal, pain, and confusion. I could NOT put this book down. It even earned me unkindly swears from my roommate at two in the morning when I couldn’t tear myself away and had the lights turned on to see. Veronica ended Tris’s story in a way I NEVER saw coming. It literally blew my mind. Saying anything about it would ruin the surprise though. So you will just have to see for yourself when the book is released on May 3rd, 2011. I cannot wait for more of Tris’s story. Ms. Roth PLEASE, PLEASE, PLEASE write more and SOON!







Four and a Half Fairies