Everyone put your worn copies of The Hunger Games back on your shelves for a rest; we have a new trilogy to become obsessed with.

To keep the peace in this version of the future, society is broken up into 5 different groups: Amity filled with those dedicated to peace, Erudite dedicated to knowledge, Candor dedicated to truthfulness, Abnegation dedicated to selflessness, and Dauntless dedicated to bravery (yes I did bookmark the page that spells this out to keep track).  Each child is raised in one group, but at the age of 16 they are given the opportunity to stick to the life they’ve known, or dedicate themselves to the code of another group.  Which is where our main character comes in.

Beatrice, or Tris, was born a member of Abnegation, and though she does her best to be selfless, she never quite felt like it was her natural tendency.  Her family seems to be the model citizens of this group, so as the Choosing Ceremony looms closer the inner struggle is a tough one as she must decide between upsetting her family by turning down the life they have provided her with and morals she has been instilled with, or go with her gut and accept that maybe it’s ok to be selfish just this once.  Even though her decision is made early on, I won’t give away what she makes up her mind to do, but I will say that the choice she does make doesn’t really solve everything for her.  There is still so much more to her character that leaves her confused with who she is, and whether or not she is allowed to express these levels to her character without being punished for being too much of an individual is something she must battle with.

As the first book in a trilogy, Divergent focuses mostly on Tris’s inner struggles as she fights through the initiation process to become a full-blown member of the faction she chooses, introducing the reader to the larger struggles of this world by focusing on a smaller scale version.  This unrest boiling up to the surface between the factions will definitely come more into play in the two books to come, but for now we get to really connect with our protagonist as she works towards figuring out who she is.  Not only that, but we get to smile like giddy schoolgirls with a crush as Tris explains her mixed feelings towards one of her instructors.  Yay for there not being a love triangle!

This world of Veronica Roth’s is definitely one worth exploring, and thank goodness the second book in the trilogy is already out there for me to quickly move on to as I burned through the pages of Divergent in a couple of days.  October cannot come soon enough to finish up the series.

Final Grade: 4.5 out of 5      Follow @BewareOfTrees