From Goodreads: 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.

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This is one of those books that’s been sitting on my shelf since it first came out, but I never got around to reading it.  I heard glorious things about it, but it wasn’t until I learned it was being made into a movie that I actually picked it up.  Shame on me.  I know.  Sometimes, that’s how things go, though…

Divergent is so much more than I expected it to be.  Completely unique, I loved the separate factions.  The entire time I was reading, I kept trying to decide what group I’d choose.  I’m not selfless, or brave, or very intelligent, so that leaves honesty or peacefulness.  Well, I’m certainly not honest all the time, but I do think that I like to keep the peace, so I’d probably end up joining Amity.  But that’s all besides the point.  Tris joins Dauntless and it’s a crazy world that she’s chosen to join.  She had no idea what it would really be like, and of course, neither did I.  My eyes just kept bulging with each new task the Dauntless gave to Tris and her peers as they attempted to become a part of the faction.  And I just loved the ups and downs and the feelings of the new entrants… it was very real to me, though a bit sickening at times, as well.

Basically, Dauntless seems very evil.  The higher ups think pain equals bravery, and that’s not how I see it, personally, but for all intensive purposes, it worked for this novel.  There’s the good, the bad, and the very ugly… a little bit of romance, a lot of fighting amongst themselves, and even attempted murder… and it made my heart beat double in my chest as this very long story unfolded. Personally, I think some of it could have been shaved off so the book wasn’t so long, but most of the events really helped shape the characters, which I loved, so while I thought it was a bit too long, I honestly don’t know what I’d cut.

Tris is tough, but I wasn’t sure she belonged in Dauntless until the very end of the book.  Things get way out of hand, what with mind control and mass hatred towards other factions, and I was blown away by the events that transpired—Tris really is brave, in my eyes, and what she had to do in the end, to survive, made me love her all the more.  Roth definitely scared me for a minute; I was sure she was going to do something drastic to one of my most favorite characters of all time, but luckily everything panned out in the end, though families and friendships have been destroyed forever.

I really thought all the characters in this novel were well developed.  From the major to the minor, we get to know them all quite well, and I loved that Roth was able to create such vivid love/hate relationships while divulging more of the secret behind what it means to be “divergent.”  Overall, I really, really enjoyed this book, and am eager to read the next installment, Insurgent, sooner, rather than later.  Four stars.

I bought a copy of this novel from Amazon.