By: Veronica Roth
Tris is sixteen, and that means she has to make a choice that will dictate the rest of her life. She can stay with the family and people group she has always known or she can choose another. Whatever she decides she had best make the right choice because there is no returning if you change your mind. There are five families, each one has it’s place in the very organised dystopian society in which she lives, the problem is, Tris doesn’t know where she really fits.
Although it breaks her heart a little she follows her gut which tells her to choose Dauntless. It is a tough choice, and a tough group to become part of. Tris didn’t realise just what she was signing on for and as the testing and brutal challenges start to take their toll she has to wonder if she has made the right choice. It is all complicated by the fact that Tris has a secret. Her secret means she doesn’t really fit in one place and in a society ruled by strict boundaries this means Tris is a threat. Conformity means survival but if she is discovered it could be the death of her.
This is a tightly written story. Tris is a likeable character there are moments I was frustrated with her but you don’t always have to like everything about a character to like them. (It’s a bit like real life, even best friends can have annoying traits). The world Roth created is interesting on the visceral level and on a theoretical level. She has created something that you can clearly picture, the restraint of the Abnegation, the sterility of the Erudite, the chaos of the Dauntless. In some part of the mind though you may start thinking just where would I fit. And how much a structured world like that would really limit your choices. Four is an interesting character, his story is even more layered than Tris’s and it will be interesting to see how those layers impact on his arc in later books. Enjoyable read, well worth picking up if you haven’t yet. Don’t let your opinion of the movie colour your choice too much, like always there are differences, some I think for the better and some, well they always have to cut some subplots out when turning a book to a film.
Publisher: HarperCollins Children’s Books
Published: 03 May 2011
Format: Paperback 496 pages
Categories: Fiction General
ISBN 13: 9780007420414
Purchase: here or use Booktopia link on the side of the page.
Divergent
October 15, 2014
TheKylieVerse 
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