Book Review #1 - Divergent by Veronica Roth

You need to read this

I recently read Divergent by Veronica Roth. It is based on a girl called Tris (Beatrice) who lives in a dystopian society, forced at 16 to make a choice. To choose where she wants to spend the rest of her life. She has a choice between 5 factions that each represent different things: Amity represents kindness/peacefulness, Candor represents honesty, Erudite represents intelligence, Dauntless represents bravery and Abnegation represents selflessness. Born into Abnegation, Tris has to choose whether she wants to stay in her old faction or move into a new one. However, there's a problem. All students are made to take an aptitude test to see which faction best suits them. Tris finds out that she belongs to more than one faction. They call this 'Divergent'. Tris doesn't know why, but this is dangerous.

The book shows Tris making her decision, and what the consequences of that decision entail. This is the biggest decision of her life and she doesn't take it lightly.

This book captivated me for many reasons. From he beginning, you're immediately on Tris' side. She is immediately the heroine of the book, mainly because she doesn't act like the heroines of many other book, she doesn't pretend to be perfect, she allows herself to make mistakes. We identify with her because she is just like any one of us with no idea where she is going in life. We see the friendships that she makes and how she deals with the things that hit her. It also makes us think about how we would react if we were put into the same situations that she is in. We see the romance of the book and fall head over heals with the characters that propel their way into her life.

What is good?
Not only can we identify with Tris, but we can understand why she does the things that she does. We don't feel intimidated by her and are shocked to see that she has a sensitive side as well as a harsh side. The romance in the book is not overwhelming, we don't feel like we're reading a soppy love story. We get caught up in the relationships without feeling like we're in the middle of 'p.s. I love you'.

What is bad?
The book itself doesn't hold many likeable characters, each character has their bad points, but some of them make themselves literally hated by the reader, which makes seeing their names over and over again a bit unbearable.

Overall
Roth has hit upon a masterpiece and I can't wait to finish the trilogy and to see what other surprises are in store!