(2011 | 487 p)
This young adult dystopian is based on the premise that society as we know it has collapsed and been restructured around 5 "factions." These factions each encompass an aspect of human nature, they are: Dauntless (fearless); Abnegation (selfless); Erudite (scholarly); Candor (honesty); and Amity (peaceful). Our heroine, Beatris (Tris), is born into Abnegation but is now 16 years old, the age when each person gets to choose which faction they'll belong to for the rest of their lives. Tris' aptitude test shows that she's none of these factions, she's Divergent. She's told to never reveal this fact to anyone and at the choosing ceremony Tris shocks her faction (and herself, to a degree) by choosing Dauntless. The means of this societal collapse and the subsequent rise of the faction system is never explained, which bugged me no end. And I just couldn't buy into the premise of the story which basically assumes that humans are sheep and will be easily corralled into one personality type or another. I think some world building would have made the whole thing easier to swallow. However, with that said, I still had a fun time reading this book (once I managed to shut up my inner sci-fi nerd and just go with the flow). I always judge my YA novels on their portrayal of young women, and Veronica Roth did a nice job in that regard. Tris is a tough little cookie. The romance, angst part ("why do I feel this way when I'm around him...") had me rolling my eyes a time or two, but it wasn't a deal breaker. This book is written for angsty teens, after all. I imagine I'll be reading the rest of the series.
The plot was ill-thought out to the point I was left wondering afterwards if even the author knew truly what 'Divergent' meant. The characters, and I use the term loosely, drastically change to match what is happening in the plot. The author tries to explain why the characters have these dramatic turns, but it seems silly and unbelievable. The main characters constantly confuses strength with bravery, and while Roth acknowledged her character Tris is selfish and ruthless, no one else in the book seems to see this. Tris is constantly told how selfless she is despite there being no evidence to the contrary.
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