Book Review: Divergent

I often have problems remembering story plots after reading a book since I am sorta a concentration-deprived person but this book is an exception. After reading it, I could still recall scenes after scenes accordingly right from start to finish, savouring all the bits that held me in awe. Ahhhh……

Divergent is exciting, well-paced yet intense, riveting to the point of throwing me into the spirals of thrills and suspense. I was totally sucked in. To be honest, I found this book a bit “draggy” at the beginning, yet the pace picked up soon after and since then I was captivated. The book was “unputdownable” , literally. It is a dystopian tale set in the far future in Chicago, USA. Apparently, it is post-war period where the country is still recovering itself from shambles and though it is not detailed in the book, the people seem to be kept within a compound bordered by gates. The current government segregates the people into five factions, namely Dauntless (The Brave), Amity( The Peaceful), Candor( The Honest), Erudite( The Intelligent), The Abnegation ( The Selfless) based on the ideals of how a well-governed country should build of to prevent from more wars and more disintegration in human kind. When one reaches sixteen, regardless of which faction you are from, you will go through a computer-initiated test where you face with simulated scenes to test you on all the five traits mentioned. The test result tells you which faction you belong to. However, you are free to choose any faction that you want as you will spend the rest of your life committing to the chosen faction. Since all five factions are separated, once you switch your faction, it means you are no longer seeing your family and your faction members. Beatrice (Tris) grows up as an Abnegation but all her life, she feels she doesn’t fit in like her parents and her brother, Caleb. She is torn between leaving her faction and family and choosing a whole new life ahead of her. When her test result shows she is a Divergent, meaning she fits in all the traits of three factions – Abnegation, Dauntless, Erudite with equal dominance, she is told to keep this as a secret. Now being a divergent is dangerous as the previous cases show that Divergents would be killed. It is revealed later that such aptitude test and simulation program are developed by an Erudite leader who wants to eliminate Abnegation due to some resource/ food allocation issues ( more than that, in actual fact). In order to do so, she needs an army and who could have made a better army other than Dauntless? Hence, she conspires with Dauntless leaders and develops simulation serum to be used in the training on the Dauntless initiates with the purpose of controlling their minds once they are injected with the solution. During the initiation, Tris goes through physical and mental training, namely combat training and mind simulation training to focus on overcoming own fear landscapes. She comes out on top finally. During the training, she falls in love with her initiation instructor, Tobias, nicknamed Four. The story is propelled to its climax when all the Dauntless faction members, who are now injected with simulation serum and controlled in their minds, are to follow the computer-generated instructions and head off to Abnegation to kill them off. Tris and Tobias, being divergents, are resistant to mind manipulation manage to terminate the computer system and escape with the hard drive that contains the important data to seek refuge in Amity. 

Divergent is a cleverly thought-out and well-planned story, written in simple and easy to follow plots which make reading such a marvelous thriller a breeze. Having said that, there are times when I had my heart pounding and screaming for the near-death experience both Tris and Tobias went through. The jumping-off-the-roof scenes, gunpoint scenes, and the fear landscapes scenes are enough to make Divergent a major cliffhanger. One thing that I find lacking in this novel is there seems to be less and if any, short conversations. I would love to read more witty repartee between characters yet Tris and Tobias are both not the chatty type. Tobias, especially is painfully inhibited with his words. Tris, to me, is not a very likable character as I think the change in her is abrupt and awkward. One minute, she is vulnerable and unsure of herself and the next she is gritting her teeth, getting vicious, wanting to punch someone in the face. The transformation from being a childlike smallish girl to a muscular and gun-shooting girl is a bit too much for me to handle. And it happens only in a matter of a few weeks time. Tobias, on the other hand, has a more well-developed portrait, which I liked. I am really glad that I read this book!

The author, Veronica Roth truly deserves a standing ovation for writing such a successful debut that accumulates so much fanfare that it is now being made into a movie! Really, really looking forward to the movie.