Divergent by Veronica Roth

2011/496pgs.

About the Book: In futuristic Chicago, the city has broken up into factions depending on value you hold most important. Are you selfless? Abnegation is for you. Value honesty about all else? Candor is your faction. Is bravery the most important thing? Dauntless is where you belong.

Sixteen-year-old Beatrice was born and raised in Abnegation, but she knows she can't stay. At the choosing ceremony, Beatrice decides to switch factions and become Dauntless. But becoming Dauntless won't be easy. The Dauntless will only accept ten new members into their faction and to become Dauntless, the initiates must compete and train in various skills.

Beatrice transforms herself into Tris and tries to excel at Dauntless training and decide who to trust. But Tris is hiding a secret from them all-one that could be dangerous to her and her new faction. As she uncovers a growing unrest among the factions, Tris must decide where her allegiances belong.

Sarah Teenlibrarian Says: This book is getting a lot of marketing a buzz behind it and is being touted as the "next Hunger Games." As Nancee mentioned in her review, Divergent is similar to The Hunger Games without feeling like a copy. Fans of The Hunger Games series would be the first group I would give this book to.

Tris is an interesting character and her world is an interesting take on the dystopian genre. Instead of it being the entire country or world, this dystopia focuses on one city. I did wonder what was going on in the rest of the country, so hopefully we get more answers in future books (because yes, this is a series, everything is in YA these days). I found Tris to be gutsy and a bit soft and she balanced these two very well. She's never really a pushover yet she's never really a completely strong kick-butt girl either. She falls in between which gives her room to grow throughout the novel. I also liked that Tris showed a bit of a soft side, it made her more relatable to me.

Even though the book is almost 500 pages long, it really is a quick read. I finished this in two days as the story was engaging enough to keep me reading. There were a few things that were a bit predictable and I would have liked there to be more that I can create theories on for future books, but I still had a lot of fun with it. Even though there were things I saw coming, there were others that I didn't which kept the book interesting. I did think the author tried to squeeze just a bit too much in this book and there a few things that weren't as fleshed out as I would have liked. But hopefully these details will be given a chance to be fleshed out later on.

There's also a romance and I have to say I liked it. It wasn't love at first sight and the author took time to develop the characters and gave them a chance to like each other before the romance took off. Although this was one area that Tris bugged me a bit-she's a bit dense and I wanted to keep telling her that boy wasn't being mean, but liked her-it took her forever to see that!!

If you like dystopian, add Divergent to your list of books to read in 2011. With all the buzz surrounding this one and the popularity of dystopian novels, I'm sure this will end up being a book that gets talked about, especially with teens. Look for it in May (or ask your teen librarian for an ARC!)