Review: Divergent by Veronica Roth

I have a confession to make.  I told it to my husband last night, and he gasped out loud (mockingly, I might add, because he is not a reader and probably never will be, to my great sorrow).

My name is Megan B., and I enjoy YA dystopian fiction.

I gotta admit it at this point.  I just finished reading my fifth YA dystopian book last night, and I liked it...and five is getting to be too big a number for me to keep saying that I don't read YA, or I don't like dystopian fiction.  Gotta embrace it, as our IT guy at work says.  A lot of people have laughed at me for liking Megan McCafferty's Bumped, I know.  But this...this book, I truly loved.

Veronica Roth's Divergent takes place in Chicago, years into the future, where the government has divided itself into sectors, factioning people by their natures and the attributes they feel are most beneficial to society.  The factions are Abnegation (the selfless), Amity (the peacemakers), Candor (the honest), Dauntless (the fearless), and Erudite (the intelligent).  At the age of sixteen, all members must make a very public choice -- to follow the faction in which they were raised, or to join a new faction and leave their old world behind.  Their choices are influenced by a pre-test that indicates where each individual would be best-placed.

The hero of Divergent is Beatrice Prior, an Abnegation-raised young woman who chooses to leave her faction and start a new life for herself as "Tris."  In her new faction, Beatrice struggles to find her true identity, while dealing with the residual emotions of the selfless community she chose to leave behind.  Underneath the surface of this new life lies the secret she took with her, and a gathering political storm that will change everything about Tris and the world she lives in.

A lot of people on Goodreads have been comparing Divergent to The Hunger Games trilogy, and although Roth has only published part I of her trilogy, I can see the similarities (somewhat).  Both are told from a first person POV, both feature female protagonists, and both are set in a futuristic dystopian society with a predilection for violence.  But.  I can also see where they (excuse the pun) diverge.

Tris is not Katniss, not by a long shot.  Katniss does not willingly throw herself into violence for no apparent reason; her motives for doing so are completely selfless.  Tris, on the other hand, has lived a whole life being selfless, and feels stifled doing so.  She knows when she leaves her faction that she is doing it for selfish reasons -- she wants to "be herself" -- and although she feels the pull back towards her selfless roots (almost constantly throughout the novel), she realizes that this was a change she had to make.  Their skill levels are much different as well.  Katniss is already a skilled archer and hunter when she goes off to the Hunger Games.  Tris is a small, weak-looking teenager with no survival skills whatsoever when she leaves her faction.  She still needs to learn everything she will need.

The testing scenes were similar (both Katniss and Tris must prove their worth and be ranked during an "initiation period") and I could see where people would draw those conclusions.  But Katniss' initiation period takes place over a couple of chapters, whereas Tris is struggling to better herself throughout the entirety of the book.  In Hunger Games, the initiation is a build-up to the action; in Divergent, it is the action.

The male protagonists in Hunger Games are eminently more likable than in Divergent (to a point).  Many people argue "Team Gale" or "Team Peeta" but there are no teams in Divergent.  When it comes down to it, Tris is a one-man woman (and I won't say anything else for risk of spoilers).  When it comes down to it, I really like the lack of a romantic triangle, which I feel has been beaten to death since the Twilight saga came out.  I'm really hoping that Roth doesn't introduce another male love interest in the second or third books...but I have a feeling she will.

I loved Divergent.  Loved it, and I can't wait until the next book comes out.  In 2012 *cries*.  I don't want to wait that long.  

Rating: *****