I’ve been hearing about this book for a while. I’d heard it
was the next
Hunger Games—in the words
of my friend Nicole, it has a “female
protagonist who kicks ass, dystopian society [that] is split up into different
specialties, war”—so definitely very similar. But I’d venture to say it was
even better than The Hunger Games.
Beatrice Prior is the story’s
protagonist, a sixteen-year-old member of the Abnegation (selfless) faction.
The other factions are Candor (the honest), Amity (the peaceful), Erudite (the
intelligent), and Dauntless (the brave). As the novel opens, she and the other sixteen-year-olds of this future,
dystopian Chicago are on the brink of adulthood, which means they will soon
take their aptitude tests—the test that determines to which faction they truly
belong. After the tests, some will choose to stay with the faction they were
born in. Others will transfer. But the mantra of the society remains the same:
“Faction before family.”
Beatrice has always known that
she doesn’t quite belong in Abnegation. Being selfless and desiring nothing but
to help others are traits that do not come as naturally to her as they seem to
come to her mother and her brother, Caleb. But she never imagined that her
aptitude test would place her in three different factions; she is Divergent.
Her test proctor immediately deletes those results from the system, manually
entering Abnegation, and begs Beatrice to never tell anyone that she is
Divergent—but refuses to give an explanation. And at the Choosing Ceremony the
next day, both she and Caleb make choices that shock each other, their parents,
and the entire community.
When Beatrice begins initiation,
she renames herself Tris and struggles to find out who her true friends are as
she goes through the incredibly strenuous initiation tests. She eventually
discovers that her seemingly perfect society is on the verge of unraveling, and
the secret she is harboring—as well of the secret of an enigmatic boy called
Four—could be what saves her, and the lives of those she loves. But it could
also destroy them.
This book was fantastic. It does make me feel a little bad
about myself simply because Veronica Roth, the author, is only a year older
than I am, but she more than deserves any success she gets from this. The
writing was miles better than The
Hunger Games: there weren’t nearly as many
annoying fragmenty sentences. And even though I’m not a huge fan of present
tense narration, it fit really well here and probably wouldn’t have been as thrilling
had it been written in the past tense.
I’m also SO glad the obligatory romance here wasn’t as
annoying as the love triangle in The Hunger Games. There was really only one romantic interest, which was refreshing.
And it was also nice that I actually liked the guy—not that I didn’t like Peeta and Gale, but I found them both
WAY too sycophantic. In Divergent,
it wasn’t sappy, and it wasn’t for show, either—they both genuinely felt for
each other, and at the same time, no less! It took almost 350 pages for that
romance to unfold and it was fantastic.
If you liked The Hunger Games, you should read this. If you didn’t like The Hunger Games, you should still read it, because I think this is
better. Can’t wait for Insurgent
to come out on May first!
4 stars
