Review: Divergent by Veronica Roth

Plot

Tris is a 16 year-old girl in a post-war world with a dilemma. Her world is split up into five factions: Amity, Abnegation, Candor, Erudite and Dauntless. These factions are all aspects of each person’s personality that best represents them as a person. When teenagers reach 16, they must make a decision: which faction they are going to be in. For Tris, she has a more challenging decision because she is a Divergent; she does not have only one, single personality trait. But she still has to decide on one faction.

And when she chooses Dauntless (bravery) she has to leave her family and has to enter a completely different society compared to the faction that she grew up in – Abnegation (selflessness). Here she has to undergo extensive physical and mental training to settle in to this new faction and this involves facing her biggest fears and dealing with enemies within and outside her faction. And, of course, as is conventional in YA, Tris finds herself falling in love.

Good points

I thought the idea for the story was fantastic. All these factions had been created to counteract the flaws of society that caused war. GENIUS! I also liked the characters. Although they did have some annoyances (as YA characters usually do), I found them quite agreeable! Both Tris and Four (Tris’ love interest) are both realistic characters – especially when they’re facing their fears as they demonstrate that everyone has their vulnerable moments.

Bad points

I think, perhaps, my issue is that since I have started reading more ‘coming of age’ recently YA fic my love of all things dystopian has had a bit of break. And returning to it was a bit of an anti-climax. I realised how much hard work dystopian fic can be. The author has to do a lot of explaining to ensure that the reader can build an image of this different world and society. And I felt that this was what let the book down slightly; the fact that the author had to explain this post-war world so extensively meant that I felt like the storyline didn’t really get going until quite a way through.

Summary

This was a great book with great characters. Although the storyline was a bit slow to start with, I am going to conclude that it was only ‘first book in the series’ syndrome. I think Veronica got the ball rolling with Divergent and the next two are going to be good now that she’s established the storyline. With that in mind I have given it…

Rating = 4 stars.

Additional points

Yes; I will indeed be seeing the film. I watched the trailer and it looks FAB!