Katherine Tegen Books: New York, 2011.
Nook copy reviewed.
In an alternative future Chicago, people live as part of
five disparate social factions that highly value specific qualities. As a 16-year-old, Beatrice must now choose
her own faction. Raised in Abnegation,
she receives an inconclusive test result on the government administered
aptitude test, and must choose to stay in Abnegation with her family, or break
ranks, abandon her family, and join another faction. Her surprising choice to join Dauntless
spins her life in an entirely new direction; soon she is jumping off buildings,
onto and off of moving trains, learning to shoot guns, making new friends and
enemies, developing feelings for her distant instructor, and fighting to
survive her initiation training. But
the newly nicknamed Tris’ test result is what really sets her apart, even from
her new faction members, and what will awake her to the realization that her
utopia is anything but. It may be the
very thing to save her…Divergent is strongly recommended to all libraries
serving older teens. It even has a bonus
slow burning romance (delightfully not a love triangle!), and is an easy sell
to Hunger Games fans of both genders craving more, this is an action packed,
high intensity, highly addictive, and fun book to read.
YOU GUYS. I LOVED
THIS BOOK. Not because it’s the most
super books in all the lands, not because it blew my mind, not because it made
me want to be a better person – in fact, it did none of these things. No, my friends. It was straight up FUN to read. So, so, so much fun! It’s firmly in the mind-crack category. Y’all know how much I love a slow-burning
romance (swoon), so Veronica Roth had me at Four. I loved the description of messed up future
Chicago (the Bean in particular), the differences in the factions, and
witnessing Tris and her fellow faction switchers adjust to what really amounts
to as a new culture. Super bonus points
for a kind of badass game of capture the flag!
Sure, there are minor things that if I hadn’t raced through it I might
have a quibble with (largely, hey TRIS, have a thought about what is beyond that giant fence!? OR where do the factionless go?!? OR less importantly, who drives those trains? what happens in winter? - but methinks this will factor in later in these books), but I don’t care! I
couldn’t put it down, and when I did, I got that twitchy finger feeling that
encouraged me to go back and pick it up.
I even stayed up past teacher o’clock to finish reading it, and then
couldn’t sleep because I was so excited.
I’m so glad I finally resigned myself to get at it, after having heard
tell of it for a while. It received a
strong rating of awesome from the wonderful teens on my trip to Chile this past
summer, and it had been on my to do list since.
Thankfully, my procrastination paid off; I have to wait way less time
for the May 1st sequel, Insurgent.
I won’t say much more about how much I enjoyed this, because I’ll be gushing
here all afternoon and you’d rather use your time to be reading this,
right? Lucky for you, there is a 100 page preview available. Say goodbye to your afternoon plans!
