Divergent (Divergent Trilogy #1) by Veronica Roth. Katherine Tegen Books (HarperCollins Imprint) 2011. 496 pgs (hardback). Young Adult, fantasy, dystopia.

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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.

The premise of this book is interesting. In a futuristic Chicago, the citizens are broken up into five factions each with distinct characteristics, and a sixth group, the “factionless.” At age sixteen, every citizen must undergo a test that helps them decide which faction to choose. Beatrice’s test results are inconclusive, and from the reaction of the tester in the room, this result is not a good one. The test admin tells Beatrice that she’s Divergent, which means she has multiple faction’s characteristics and could choose almost any one. It seems that the majority of these young adults choose to remain with the faction in which they were born, though there are rare cases of “defectors” who choose a different faction during the coming-of-age ceremony.

Beatrice is one of those people. She was born in the faction of Abnegation where she was raised to be selfless, demure, and to think of others before herself. However, she chooses to embrace a place in the Dauntless, the group she watches every day come to school, when they jump off the train, whooping and hollering. She is jealous of their freedom, of their daring, and on top of that, Beatrice also feels completely out of touch with her home faction. As it turns out, her brother also chooses to defect—to Erudite.

Even though she chooses Dauntless, there is also another test—her training. If she isn’t chosen for initiation by Dauntless, she will become factionless. When the Dauntless initiates first arrive at Dauntless headquarters, they are told to jump off the building. Nobody knows what to do. Beatrice, having been teased the entire train ride there, decides to go first. She takes off her jacket and bares her arms—something she has never done in front of another person—and jumps. She lands safely in a net and is greeted by Four, the Dauntless member in charge of training new members.

The initiates are then told to choose a new name, to shed their former faction and become Dauntless. Beatrice chooses Tris, a name close enough to her old one that she still feels comfortable with herself, and begins training. Throughout the training, Tris not only comes to know her own strength as a Dauntless, but what it might mean to be Divergent. She embraces the Dauntless way of life by getting tattoos, though they represent her old life (three ravens to represent her mom, dad, and brother), the seals of Abnegation and Dauntless, and others. Tris’s training is turbulent to say the least. Four, the leader in charge of training, does not give her any slack. The other initiates are jealous of the ease with which Tris seems to pass each phase of training, with little to no problems. Of course, Tris does have problems and issues with training, especially the physical parts of it, but she is determined to become Dauntless.

On visiting day, Tris doesn’t expect any of her family members to visit. But when she sees her mother standing there in the Pit, she is ecstatic, as any young girl would be. Her mother seems to know her way around Dauntless, which troubles Tris, but she doesn’t mention anything about it. It’s only when her mother warns her to keep her Divergent status a secret that Tris knows something is wrong. Then her mother asks her for a favor; she must go to Erudite and ask her brother, Caleb, to research the testing serum they use for various tests during training and initiation.

Without giving anything away, I will say that I enjoyed this book. I didn’t understand a few things, however, that Veronica Roth might explain in later books: why were the citizens of Chicago separated into five factions to begin with? Why don’t the factions like each other or get along? There is a lot of animosity between the factions and the reasons behind that aren’t explained at all. Why are the Dauntless “protecting and patrolling” the border fence around Chicago? What happened to the world for that fence to be put up in the first place?

If you were a fan of the Hunger Games, I would suggest you read Divergent. While I was reading Divergent, I likened it to Hunger Games meets Harry Potter. Enjoy, and let me know what you think if or when you read Divergent! (Psst, by the way, they’re making a movie.)