Go 'Divergent' on your reading list
Divergent is a thrill ride of a story that will pull you through to the end and toward the sequel. Veronica Roth creates a detailed society that feels real. The story, told from Beatrice “Tris” Prior’s point of view, features a dystopian world based in Chicago. While much of the infrastructure is more or less in tact (trains and lights still work, there are solar powered cars, and roads are patched), society has broken down, presumably because of a war.
Roth’s dystopia has five factions that are supposed to work together to eliminate the possibility of war. Abnegation are selfless. Dauntless are courageous. Erudite are intellectual. Amity are friendly. Candor are truthful. Each faction focuses on its own strength with no regard to becoming complete human beings. Rather each person specializes in the characteristics that are most prized in his or her faction. A majority of the population will fit itself into one of the five categories, but the Divergent don’t fit in any, and the Erudite are looking to eliminate the Divergent because the Erudite want to control the entire population for its own good. It is unfortunate that The Hunger Games will be the series by which every other Young Adult dystopian series is measured because Divergent does a much better job of addressing problems of today and bringing up relative questions. Where The Hunger Games lacks anything of real substance, Divergent has a lot of meat to bite into. The relationship between Tris and Four is not nearly as infuriating as the one between the love triangle in The Hunger Games. It is a little on the lame side, but only because it feels like it had to happen. The characters didn’t really have a choice, and the relationship makes sense within the context of Roth’s dystopia. Divergent may not be as revolutionary as some of the other works out there, but it does make for a quick read, and it ends in such a way that not reading the sequel is unthinkable. Read the top five quotes from the book. |
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