Review: Divergent

Divergent (Divergent, book 1)
By Veronica Roth
Published 2011 by Katherine Tegen Books

In Beatrice's world, society has split into five factions: Candor, Abnegation, Erudite, Dauntless, and Amity. Beatrice was raised in Abnegation; soon, she will be forced to choose to which faction she will devote the rest of her life. But, all is not as it seems, even after Beatrice makes her choice.

This book has been everywhere for the last few months. All the staff at one of my libraries had been reading it recently. Plus, it's one of the Lone Star books this year and I'd like to try to read them all. The few of my Goodreads friends who have read it have had sort of mild reactions to it. I myself am not entirely sure how I feel about it. A lot of it is pretty ridiculous - like the world Tris lives in doesn't even remotely make sense - but I found myself willing to play along because it was kind of a ridiculously awesome idea. Tris is an obnoxious character - I don't want to give any spoilers away but she spends A LOT of her time being woefully ignorant to a variety of painfully obvious things. The writing is nothing special and some of the plot relies on old tropes done in a slightly different way. But Roth has me intrigued. Even though Beatrice/Tris was all too often a frustrating character, I found myself rooting for her. I want to know more about the ridiculous world that Roth has created. I want to find out what happens next. So, I'll be back for book two - let's hope it gets a little better.