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One choice can transform you. Pass initiation. Do not fail! Thrilling urban dystopian fiction debut from exciting young author. In sixteen-year-old Beatrice Prior’s world, society is divided into five factions — Abnegation (the selfless), Candor (the honest), Dauntless (the brave), Amity (the peaceful), and Erudite (the intelligent) — each dedicated to the cultivation of a particular virtue, in the attempt to form a “perfect society.” At the age of sixteen, teens must choose the faction to which they will devote their lives. On her Choosing Day, Beatrice renames herself Tris, rejects her family’s group, and chooses another faction. After surviving a brutal initiation, Tris finds romance with a super-hot boy, but also discovers unrest and growing conflict in their seemingly “perfect society.” To survive and save those they love, they must use their strengths to uncover the truths about their identities, their families, and the order of their society itself.Product Description
In Beatrice Prior’s dystopian Chicago, 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 to determine who her friends really are—and where, exactly, a romance with a sometimes fascinating, sometimes infuriating 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 a growing conflict that threatens to unravel her seemingly perfect society, she also learns that her secret might help her save those she loves… or it might destroy her.
Debut author Veronica Roth bursts onto the literary scene with the first book in the Divergent series—dystopian thrillers filled with electrifying decisions, heartbreaking betrayals, stunning consequences, and unexpected romance.
A Q&A with Author Veronica Roth
Q: What advice would you offer to young aspiring writers, who long to live a success story like your own?
Roth: One piece of advice I have is: Want something else more than success. Success is a lovely thing, but your desire to say something, your worth, and your identity shouldn’t rely on it, because it’s not guaranteed and it’s not permanent and it’s not sufficient. So work hard, fall in love with the writing—the characters, the story, the words, the themes—and make sure that you are who you are regardless of your life circumstances. That way, when the good things come, they don’t warp you, and when the bad things hit you, you don’t fall apart.
Q: You’re a young author–is it your current adult perspective or not-so-recent teenage perspective that brought about the factions in the development of this story? Do you think that teens or adults are more likely to fit into categories in our current society?
Roth: Other aspects of my identity have more to do with the factions than my age. The faction system reflects my beliefs about human nature—that we can make even something as well-intentioned as virtue into an idol, or an evil thing. And that virtue as an end unto itself is worthless to us. I did spend a large portion of my adolescence trying to be as “good” as possible so that I could prove my worth to the people around me, to myself, to God, to everyone. It’s only now that I’m a little older that I realize I am unable to be truly “good” and that it’s my reasons for striving after virtue that need adjustment more than my behavior. In a sense, Divergent is me writing through that realization—everyone in Beatrice’s society believes that virtue is the end, the answer. I think that’s a little twisted.
I think we all secretly love and hate categories—love to get a firm hold on our identities, but hate to be confined—and I never loved and hated them more than when I was a teenager. That said: Though we hear a lot about high school cliques, I believe that adults categorize each other just as often, just in subtler ways. It is a dangerous tendency of ours. And it begins in adolescence.
Q: If you could add one more faction to the world within Divergent, what would it be?
Roth: I tried to construct the factions so that they spanned a wide range of virtues. Abnegation, for example, includes five of the traditional “seven heavenly virtues:” chastity, temperance, charity, patience, and humility. That said, it would be interesting to have a faction centered on industriousness, in which diligence and hard work are valued most, and laziness is not allowed. They would be in constant motion, and would probably be happy to take over for the factionless. And hard-working people can certainly take their work too far, as all the factions do with their respective virtues. I’m not sure what they would wear, though. Overalls, probably.
Q: What do you think are the advantages, if any, to the society you’ve created in Divergent?
Roth: All the advantages I see only seem like advantages to me because I live in our current society. For example, the members of their society don’t focus on certain things: race, religion, sexual orientation, political affiliation, etc. I mean, a world in which you look different from the majority and no one minds? That sounds good to me. But when I think about it more, I realize that they’re doing the exact same thing we do, but with different criteria by which to distinguish ourselves from others. Instead of your skin color, it’s the color of your shirt that people assess, or the results of your aptitude test. Same problem, different system.
Q: What book are you currently reading and how has it changed you, if at all?
Roth: I recently finished Imaginary Girls by Nova Ren Suma, which I would call “contemporary with a paranormal twist,” or something to that effect. It’s about a girl whose sister has a powerful kind of magnetism within the confines of a particular town, and how their love for each other breaks some things apart and puts other things back together. It was refreshing to read a young adult book that is about sisterhood instead of romance. It’s one of those books that makes you love a character and then hate a character and then love them again—that shows you that people aren’t all good or all bad, but somewhere in between. Imaginary Girls gave me a lot to think about, and the writing was lovely, which I always love to see.
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Enthralling, Riveting Must Buy Novel!,
Divergent was definitely a new riveting tale that had me rapidly flipping the pages in a reading frenzy! It starts off with the reader getting to know the lifestyle of Beatrice, a sixteen year old girl, in a dystopian or controlled world, where there are five factions of people: Abnegation who put others before their own needs and where Beatrice is currently from, the Dauntless who are brave and fearless, the Erudite who are studious, the Amity who are peaceful, and the Candor who are honest. Before Choosing Day, where each sixteen year old will decide which faction they wish to devote their life to, is a simulated aptitude test that will tell Beatrice which faction she would fit in most with…but for her life will never be simple. Instead of having just one of these traits as is normal, Beatrice possesses at least three, which makes her a dangerous person for reasons she doesn’t understand, and answers are not forthcoming as she has to keep this information to herself or risk being killed.
From there Beatrice has to make her own mark in the world, and ultimately makes a decision that will change the rest of her life. No more does she portray the meek, silent girl with no spirit, but instead forces herself to rise up to the challenges she faces in both the initiation and in her life. For if she lets her guard down, she faces becoming factionless, without friends or family, but what she doesn’t expect to find along her new path is what she yearned for all along. To understand who she really is.
Divergent is one novel that had me jumping out of my seat, biting my nails to the quick as I was drawn into Beatrice’s world, cheering her on one minute, and wanting to cry with her the next. She does have her moments where she seems a little cold like when she wishes one boy would stop sniveling, and you see why Abnegation didn’t suit her. But then the next minute she is putting herself in danger for someone else, and you understand why she has a bit of a split personality. She’s been born into a society that believes you can only have one quality, and she has to figure out on her own that being brave dosen’t mean that she has to give up being selfless as well. As she fights to stay in the competition, for only ten initiates will be able to call their new faction familiy, I couldn’t help but root for her. Beatrice has a lot to learn, but it’s through obstacles and the friendship’s she makes that she ultimately finds herself. This is one book that I wholeheartedly recommend to anyone who loves action, bravery, a little romance, and a ton of adventure. Be forewarned that it will have you sitting on the edge of your seat and eagerly anticipating a sequel!
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|Lukewarm Dystopian. . .But Good Story and Adventure.,
In the YA book world, 2011 is definitely shaping up to be the year of the dystopian. With the popularity and acclaim of Suzanne Collins’s The Hunger Games trilogy, the young adult publishing world seemed to explode with all kinds of ideas for dystopians about oppression and chaos — and publishers were all the more willing to oblige them due to the proven success of The Hunger Games.
One of the more hyped offerings, Divergent by Veronica Roth, has been gaining more and more pre-publication buzz each day, especially since the news that Summit Entertainment had optioned the book for film adaptation even months before the book’s release date. Never mind that a mere peek at the Goodreads page for the book shows a bevy of four- and five-star reviews. Divergent just seemed to need to be read to be believed — and read I did.
Truthfully, I don’t think the quick comparison to The Hunger Games does Divergent any favors except to build hype and expectations among readers. However much it’s a great tactic for marketing, I personally don’t know if this book should even be referred to as a dystopian since the label hurts more than helps it, giving the idea of one thing to the readers and offering something a little bit different with the story itself.
Let me explain: I have a set idea as to what, for me personally, a dystopian is. YA dystopians seem to have an identity crisis at times (something Vinaya spoke about here) where they’re just so intent about illustrating some kind of suffering or shock factor hook that they lose the true meaning of a dystopia: a world that has descended from order to chaos, one where what once were nightmares and dark musings of past times (i.e. usually our own modern days) are now common pieces of society, even to the point where rights or privileges of the people have been abolished and replaced by ‘what is deemed right and fair.’
Now, back to the case of Divergent: yes, it certainly has hints of dystopian tenets. . .but strip the layers of the story away and what do you have? Is it really a true dystopian, the kind that makes us fear for our own world because we see the problems and warnings present in our own time and place? Or just an action thriller with dystopian elements? Honestly, Divergent is an adrenaline-kick, shock-factor-enthusiast, and action-centric kind of book first and foremost; the dystopian undercurrent is mostly for show, at least in this beginning installment to the trilogy.
For being labeled a dystopian, the world-building behind the story leaves a lot to be desired. Though we are told that the five factions resulted from a ‘great peace’ following a devastating war, the nature and state of the world as a whole is a big unknown. Chicago is the focus, front and center, but any reader must wonder, “What about the rest of the United States? And the world itself?” Roth describes her world sparingly, giving only some modern downtown Chicago landmarks scene time to ground her world; one must wonder if the sparseness of setting is a sign of intentional withholding of information or lack of planning and fleshing of the story’s world. (Personally, I hope it is the former.)
But all of those concerns of mine started to fade into the background as I continued to read. Though the flaws are many (the length, unfortunately, being one of them), Roth doesn’t fail to draw readers into her story and make them feel compelled to keep reading just to see what happens. The first one hundred and fifty pages were a struggle for me, no lie, but then it got easier to accept the book for what it was instead of wishing for more of what I thought it could be. The most discernible problem for me was Beatrice, who was a difficult heroine to grow to like since she started out so judgmental and harsh to the point that she was a bit unrelatable. Then her ‘change’ seemed to come much too soon, but I was glad for it since she eventually became a bearable (though, at times, still not particularly likable) heroine.
The novel’s plot doesn’t start to come together under the last one hundred or so pages, but I have to appreciate the character relationships that grow within the story. However much I was ready to ride them off in the beginning, the characters grew on me (sometimes in spite of myself), and I really started to care about what was happening to them and around them. When I start off with questionable feelings towards a book, I don’t often change my mind. . .but, with Divergent, I eventually found myself swayed.
In the end, what struck (and stuck with) me most about the novel overall is this: the underlying theme of morals and their importance in the story. The factions themselves are representations of things valued and praised within the Bible: selflessness, bravery, honesty, knowledge, and peace. (I am not taking liberties by assuming Roth used the Bible as…
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|Ridin’ on the coattails of The Hunger Games,
Ridin’ on the coattails of The Hunger Games
Beatrice ‘Tris’ Prior lives in a (psuedo) dystopic Chicago. People have been rearranged into Five Factions: Abnegation, Candor, Dauntless, Erudite, and Amity. Beatric is given a chance, when she is 16, to choose which faction to go into, and her choice is startling and not the easy one she expected.
REASONS WHY READING THIS WAS ENJOYABLE:
+ There is absolutely, positively NO ROMANTIC TRIANGLE!! FINALLY, a Young Adult, Urban Fantasy/Dystopia novel that does NOT center its ENTIRE PLOT around a forced plot triangle. Excuse me while I faint from astonishment.
+ Roth’s competent writing. First person present isn’t an easy tense, but Roth writes it well. It isn’t as choppy and “childish” as Jones’ “Need”, and yet it isn’t burdened with flowery prose.
+ Interesting characters. Tris is an interesting character, as is Christina, Tori, Four, and Tris’ mom (would REALLY love to know more about her!).
+ The last 150 pages are INTENSE.
+ The book reminds me a little of “Ender’s Game”.
+ The book is about overcoming obstacles and doing the right thing.
+ It is a dystopia.
REASONS WHY YOU SHOULD TURN BACK NOW:
- World building makes NO SENSE. Why would ANY GOVERNMENT split up a society into FIVE FACTIONS? Don’t most dystpopias WANT people to be uniform? Or if there ARE Five Factions, wouldn’t they want them to be fighting amongst themselves, too busy to see the government creeping into their lives (sorta like Fforde’s “Shades of Grey”)? In fact, what even MAKES this society dystopian? Why aren’t we rooting for the Erudite? Yeah, they are killing people, but they DO want equal representation–isn’t that what American Forefathers fought for? Why is this wrong now?
- How in the frakkin’ hell can ANYONE call the Dauntless “brave”? Jumping off buildings, running off trains, catapulting down a zipline DOES NOT MAKE SOMEONE BRAVE. Bravery is in the small things–being with a dying parent, living with cancer, not giving up even though you want to–an idea that takes Tris THE ENTIRE BOOK to figure out. Since when does getting a tattoo make you brave? Why is there so much time spent on the physical test, but the last two tests are almost overlooked? How can Dauntless EVER make friends if they are so worried about being on top? How has this faction not totally destroyed itself? Where is the solidarity? Why are these supposedly brave people so eager to have a dubious serum injection?
- Why is it only Abnegation seems to have any real differences from modern cultlure (no mirrors, simple foods, simple clothes)? Where are the vast differences in the other Factions (besides silly clothes differences and the stupid tattoo thing)?
- How can everyone be split up into different factions? Were these people genetically altered? Is there some sort of indoctrination that occurs that wipes away any tendencies for the other Virtues? How can children change and why would they want to wait until 16 to start training them in the Faction they will spend their ENTIRE lives in? Why is being factionless bad? How can the serum work on these people? How come there aren’t MORE divergent? Why is it so rare?
- Inconsistent heroine. One minute, she realizes (somewhat determinedly, in a really nice “brave” moment) that she is neither Abnegation, nor Dauntless, then the next, she is shocked to discover this very fact. WTF? Tris constantly complains about her bravery vs selflessness being at war, but when is she ever really selfless in the book? She hardly acts Abnegation at all!! How can she call these people friends? She almost is Bella-like in how she uses them!
- The writing style is a little too similar to Collins’ The Hunger Games.
- In the beginning, the relationship between Four and Tris feels almost like a girl having a crush for her teacher.
- Muscle doesn’t bulk up in a week. You don’t recover from a tattoo overnight. A bullet wound in the shoulder isn’t just going to mildly slow you down in a fight.
- In The Hunger Games, without Katniss, there would have been no revolution. In Divergent, Beatrice does nothing that couldn’t have been done by anyone else. Her role was unnecessary; the Erudite would have attacked, some other Divergent would have risen and taken them down, end of story. There is nothing that makes Beatrice special, so it feels like the story was pointless.
So, yeah, I found a few problems with the novel. Unfortunately, they all dealt with the world building, the absolute fundamental of the novel. But I will say, if you can swallow the concept, pull back the curtain, and just be enraptured by the story, it’s not bad at all. Beatrice takes time to grow on you, but she is a good heroine. She is…
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