Review: Divergent

Divergent by Veronica Roth

Genre: YA

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Goodreads Says: In Beatrice Prior's dystopian Chicago, 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 to determine who her friends really are—and where, exactly, a romance with a sometimes fascinating, sometimes infuriating 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 a growing conflict that threatens to unravel her seemingly perfect society, she also learns that her secret might help her save those she loves… or it might destroy her.

Debut author Veronica Roth bursts onto the literary scene with the first book in the Divergent series—dystopian thrillers filled with electrifying decisions, heartbreaking betrayals, stunning consequences, and unexpected romance.

Audio Book

Have you ever read a book and had nothing to say? This is how I feel right now. I feel like I'm on Neutral. I had my reservations about Divergent. 2012 has given me too many bad books with LOTS of marketing backing it up. Way too much hype and so little was delivered. So, again, I had my reservations. There was another thing too but I won’t go into that. To my surprise I actually enjoyed this read a lot.

This was just a story to me folks. It was nice. I didn’t feel like there was anything overly special about it but that was ok because it felt like nice storytelling. It is not perfect storytelling but it was still nice.
The Goodreads synopsis is a pretty good one but basically we follow Tris as she trains and fights to become a Dauntless member. I personally couldn’t help but root for her as she made her way up the ranks solely with determination and smarts. True, she has a special gift but that could only get her so far. I liked that the underdog was top dog by the end of the initiation process. Initially what attracted me to this book was that it was based in Chicago. It was awesome to know that at one point Tris was in Humboldt Park about three blocks away from my home. I loved listening to different parts of Chicago popping up in the book.

It seems that most people have a problem with some of the holes in this world. For example you will not be told why society deteriorated in the way that it did and why its members had to break apart into five different factions. You will not be told why you have to get an aptitude test if in the end you get to choose which faction you want to be in at age 16. There might be more that I’m missing but honestly these holes I speak of didn’t bother me too much. I think it's because I felt like maybe it will be revealed in later books. Maybe because I understood that this was Tris’ journey into another faction and living in her present reality didn’t involve analyzing all the factions or their history because there was no reason to. She needed to focus on training and that is where the book’s focus was, therefore so was I. For the most part I just went with the flow to see where it led and am glad that I did.

On to the next one.



View all my reviews