Book Review: Veronica Roth – “Divergent”

In Beatrice Prior’s dystopian Chicago world, society is divided into five factions, each dedicated to the cultivation of a particular virtue—Candor (the honest), Abnegation (the selfless), Dauntless (the brave), Amity (the peaceful), and Erudite (the intelligent). On an appointed day of every year, all sixteen-year-olds must select the faction to which they will devote the rest of their lives. For Beatrice, the decision is between staying with her family and being who she really is—she can’t have both. So she makes a choice that surprises everyone, including herself.
During the highly competitive initiation that follows, Beatrice renames herself Tris and struggles alongside her fellow initiates to live out the choice they have made. Together they must undergo extreme physical tests of endurance and intense psychological simulations, some with devastating consequences. As initiation transforms them all, Tris must determine who her friends really are—and where, exactly, a romance with a sometimes fascinating, sometimes exasperating boy fits into the life she’s chosen. But Tris also has a secret, one she’s kept hidden from everyone because she’s been warned it can mean death. And as she discovers unrest and growing conflict that threaten to unravel her seemingly perfect society, she also learns that her secret might help her save those she loves . . . or it might destroy her. (Source: amazon.com)

I started reading this book only because one of my best friends,  Sarah, told me about it while we were texting, said it was amazing. And I have to admit, when I read a sample – meaning the first two chapters of it -, I had mixed feelings about it. On the one hand, it sounded promising, on the other, there was something that didn’t quite convince me I should invest my money into it. Plus, it all sounded to me like a cheap version of “The Hunger Games”, a book series I absolutely adore. Then, after two weeks of stalling the inevitable, I downloaded the entire series – containing three books – onto my Kindle. Risky.

It was one of the best decisions on a book I have ever made.

I did not expect anything when I started the 1st book 3 days ago, because as I said, it seemed too similar to “The Hunger Games”. Young girl confused about who she is, growing up in a country where she’s kind of hidden of the real world, raised to pigeonholing…my thoughts were all over Katniss Everdeen. But Veronica Roth surprised me.

A first big plus about this series: the names. I mean, I absolutely love “The Hunger Games”, it’s by far my favourite book series, but the names just never grew to me at all, because obviously they’re all made up, there’s nobody in the world with the kind of names people are dealing with in the books. The names in “Divergent” are normal, which, for me, made it easier to get into the story itself. You can picture the life of the characters way more easily when you hear familiar names. That’s my thought, at least.

Also, the dystopian world the story is set in is not that far from reality as you might think, because I think a world where – as a punishment for things that happened decades ago – kids are put into a arena to fight each other to death is way less realistic than a world where a country is divided in 5 different parts with 5 different…”tribes”, as I started calling the factions in my head, with each “tribe” having their own principles, rules and own “infrastructures”.

Second plus: the protagonist, Beatrice Prior, is  lot like the usual girl. She’s insecure, she puts her family and friends before herself (even if it’s the education and the principles of her faction), and due to her not being very noticeable, she is an easy target. She has learned to duck instead of speaking up for herself. But during the story, she changes; she gets stronger, she starts thinking more of herself, if not all the time, but a lot more than she was raised to do. And for the first time she feels like home when she dives more and more into her new family, the Dauntless., and their traditions and rules.

Of course there is a love story, but I what I really like about this book is that it’s not being the most important thing, that unlike “The Hunger Games”, it’s not Beatrice’s love life that’s in the focus, but her struggles with enemies who only see her as a weakling, and struggles with herself about her decision to abandon her family. Even death finds its way into her new life, and although her strength, her will and her bravery is tested more than once due to that, although she’s being thrown on her back more than once, (including attempted murder, betrayal and suicide), she never gives up. Confusion is omnipresent with Beatrice, especially when it comes to one of her instructors, who everyone only calls “Four” – and whom she is attracted to, something the reader can feel from the first moment she meets him. Of course, at one point, the mystery about his real name and his past is put out in the open for the reader, and that is the only thing that kind of…not disappointed me, but definitely didn’t leave me in awe. I wasn’t surprised at all when Four reveals himself to Beatrice; to me, it was kind of predictable and I would’ve wished for Veronica Roth to be more surprising with that mystery. But that is only a little flaw in an otherwise flawless book, and it won’t be a reason for me to not read it again.

I really had difficulties to put this book away, I have to admit, especially during the middle and to the end of it, when the tension between Beatrice and her opponents – Peter, one of the other initiates and Eric, the youngest leader of the Dauntless, both ruthless and reckless through and through, – rise with every new day. And all the feelings Beatrice goes through – trust, mistrust, disappointment, shock, anger, the will to survive -, people can relate to easily, at least in my opinion. You might think this is a book for teenagers, due to the character’s young age, but I definitely don’t think so, because just as “The Hunger Games”, it’s quite cruel in some parts. And at the end, you just want to know how the story goes on now that Beatrice’s life has been turned completely upside down.

Thumbs up from me. If you haven’t read it yet (or struggle yourself with doing it, just as I did at first), my only advise: get over your fear of being disappointed (be Dauntless, so to speak) and let that book take you in. I promise, you won’t regret it.