Divergent - Veronica Roth

Divergent is the first book of a trilogy (Insurgent the second and the third book is coming in October 2013). The book's about a sixteen-year-old girl named Beatrice or short Tris. She lives in a city (after reading the bonus material I found out the city is meant to be future Chicago) which is divided in 5 parts; Abnegation, Dauntless, Candor, Amity and Erudite. Each faction has their own personality and their own tasks in their society. The factions are created, in order to separate people with different personalities from each other, so they can't start a war. Beatrice is born in Abnegation, but every year teenagers at the age of 16 can choose another faction. So when the story starts, Beatrice had to choose in which faction she wants to spent the rest of her live.

One of my first thoughts when I was reading this book that it was fun to read, but it gave me the same feeling as when I was reading The Hunger Games. The similarities are for example: both about a brave sixteen-year-old girl with an clear opinion, the book describes a future America in which the authorities have created an system to prevent war and the writing style was the same as in the The Hunger Games-trilogy. Nevertheless I liked the book. It's an easy read, it makes you think what faction you would choose and if the system really works and the book is entertaining. The storyline was sometimes pretty predictable which was a shame, because I think that those predictable moments could be changed easily.

So I recommend Divergent to people who liked The Hunger Games (or another book about a world with a disturbed system (I found out there are quite a lot about those books)) and don't mind to read another book with the same features.

-L

Pages: 487
Genre: Young-Adult/Science-Fiction