Divergent

This post first published July 1, 2011.

Author: Veronica Roth
Published: May 2011
Publisher: HarperCollins Children’s Books
Series: Divergent #1
487 pages (hardcover)
 
Being a dystopian fiction fan, and the fact that this book was quite hyped, had me interested in reading Divergent for a while now. There’s a lot of YA dystopian novels entering the market these days, and not all of it good, but I was pretty optimistic about this book. While I ended up liking it, I’m still kind of “WTF” about the world. I don’t get it.

The story takes place in a future version of Chicago. The population is split into five factions: Amity (the peaceful), Dauntless (the brave), Abnegation (the selfless), Erudite (the knowledgable) and Candor (the honest). The five factions were created so that the people can live in peace, living amongst people who are like them. On one’s sixteenth birthday, one must choose the faction that one will live in for the rest of one’s life.

Beatrice and her brother, Caleb are sixteen now (are they twins? book never says) and it is time for them to choose which faction to devote their lives to. They were born into an Abnegation family, but they do not necessarily have to stay with the faction they are born into. All the sixteen year olds must take an aptitude test to determine which faction they are most suited for, although which faction you join is still ultimately up to you. Beatrice’s aptitude test results are not as straightforward as everyone else’s: Beatrice doesn’t fit into any of the five factions neatly — she’s Divergent. She is told to keep it a secret, because being Divergent is a bad thing, apparently. Pondering on what being Divergent could possibly mean right up to the moment where she must choose, Beatrice decides on Dauntless. However, choosing the faction is not the end of the trials. Now Beatrice enters a grueling initiation period (or in other words, she voluntarily gets tortured), where she must prove that she has what it takes to be Dauntless, or be thrown out to live in the streets with the Factionless.

There are a lot of things I liked about this book, and overall, I definitely do like the story, however, I will start off with the thing I really didn’t like:

The thing I didn’t really like was the dystopian world Roth created. Dystopian settings should still be believable. But in Divergent, I had a hard time buying any of it. It just doesn’t seem plausible. I think this quote from a Goodreads member sums it up:

Now, what I would like to know is, which facking genius came up with THAT idea? Who was it that got up and said, “Hold up peeps. I’ve totally got it. We’ll DIVIDE the city by forcing everyone to choose ONE AND ONLY ONE principle virtue and we’ll even make it obvious by getting them to wear different colours so that there will be no question whatsoever as to which group they belong. SEPARATION is the way forward.”

This is all supposed to encourage peace, but as shown in the book, it only caused faction rivalry. It simply doesn’t make sense to me why society would evolve into this strange system. If Divergent was a fantasy novel, I think this would make more sense and I think I would like it more, but it’s not, so it confuses me. And you HAVE to pick a faction or else become factionless (in other words, homeless). If you don’t do well in the initiation, you also become factionless. Then they go complain about the factionless people draining their resources. I don’t understand why society would create homeless people so easily like this, especially when most societies (Western, anyway) try to encourage and help the homeless today.

Okay. Rant over.

Besides that one part, I actually really enjoyed the story. It is a bit reminiscent of The Hunger Games with the division of society and the brutal fighting and violence that Beatrice has to endure during her initiation; however, I think this is significantly different enough that it is quite original to me. Most of the plot consists of the initiation trial, which may sound kind of boring, but is actually fast paced and thrilling. Not a lot of authors can write fight scenes that create tension and excitement, but Veronica Roth definitely can do it without making it sound like you’re just reading a string of actions. The plot isn’t perfect, but I definitely enjoyed reading it and I liked the ending a lot as well, even though the part where you finally figure out what being Divergent means was kind of anti-climatic (and it turns out being Divergent doesn’t mean much). The ending appropriately concludes this book, but leaves just enough story left to be continued and expanded in a sequel (and from what I read, this is to be a trilogy). That’s the way you write the ending to a book in a planned series (cough, cough Elixir …)

I also quite liked the protagonist, Beatrice, which is surprising to me because I was prepared to dislike her, based on the fact that I haven’t really been feeling the protagonists lately in YA dystopians/paranormal romances (which are the genres I generally gravitate to in YA books, ironically). But Beatrice was interesting because she wasn’t a Mary Sue and she wasn’t boring. She’s feisty, kick-ass and, dare I say, a bit vindictive? When people pick on her, she wants to exact some kind of revenge. When her friend-turned-enemy tried to kill her but then asked for her forgiveness, I was glad she didn’t go the angelic route; she told him straight up that she will kill him if he comes near her again. To me, that is a realistic response to her situation. Or at least, the response I would say (I mean, he tried to kill her …) Beatrice was realistic to me, and I liked that. Okay, well, not 100% realistic (parents dying is just a minor event, but romantic interest potentially being hurt? Oh no!!) but still, good enough for a YA.

Overall, I really liked the story.  It was exciting, action packed and had a kick-butt heroine. I enjoyed the writing as well, despite normally being an anti-fan of present tense. If I didn’t have such qualms with the world it is set in, I definitely would have liked it more and rated it higher, but as it is right now, I think it’s good and I would definitely continue reading the rest of the books in this trilogy once they are published.

My Rating: 3.5/5