A review by bbrassfield
Divergent by Veronica Roth

4.0

This quote from the book strikes me, sadly, as a piece of truth: "I don't care about factions... Look where they got us. Human beings as a whole cannot be good for long before the bad creeps back in and poisons us again."

In a nutshell, this is what Divergent is about, and most likely what the rest of the series will attempt to overcome, if only for a little while. In Divergent we learn of this dystopia that has arisen where people are divided into five factions, with each having their place in society in attempt to make the world a more harmonious and functional place. You have your factions that focus on knowledge, selflessness, bravery, and so forth. The novel does not tell us how these factions came to be though I'm hoping to find out more about that in later novels. Where things get interesting is when characters like Beatrice flabbergast the testing that determines what faction a person fits into. In short, Beatrice is a divergent, and not the only one. Most of the drama in this first book focuses on Beatrice leaving her family's faction Abnegation (the government overseers because of their supposed selflessness) and her initiation and training as a member of Dauntless. What Beatrice learns as the novel progresses is that there is a plot underway by the Erudite to eradicate most of the Abnegation faction with the somewhat unwitting help of the Dauntless. It's an interesting book and I look forward to the next.