Divergent is a young adult novel, set in dystopian Chicago, that follows the journey of our Abnegation born protagonist and narrator, Beatrice Prior. The city is split into 5 factions. Candor, Amity, Dauntless, Erudite, and Beatrice’s Abnegation. The book begins with our main protagonist, Beatrice, getting her haircut in front of a mirror. She’s worried about her upcoming aptitude test that will decide what faction she ends up in. It’s a pretty big decision, she will decide whether to stay with or leave her family. “And tomorrow, I will decide on a faction; I will decide my life; I will decide the rest of my life.” (Roth) This is a very hard choice for her to make. But, no matte her choice, she keeps a very brave soul. “I am selfish, I am brave.” (Roth)

            I, personally, have a few mixed feelings about this book. While it is an entertaining read for some select audience, there are a few things off about the book. In my opinion, the worldwide character traits and the predictability were a bit unrealistic to me. Though, some things the book did well was the amount of re-readability and imagery. Some of the ways that the book described the main character’s choices weren’t things that I think made a lot of sense. In reality, I think that there’s no way that someone who’s being forced to join a faction wouldn’t have just a little bit of divergency. I think that almost everyone would be heavily conflicted if they had to pick one group to join for the rest of their lives. The fact that someone becoming divergent was very rare in the book just didn’t seem to make a lot of sense to me. The book also seemed a bit predictable during some parts. I think that it was obvious that the main character was going to choose a specific faction during a few parts of the book. It seemed a bit unlikely that anything else was going to happen. Even with the unpleasant parts, there were still a lot of enjoyable sections of the book. I thoroughly enjoyed the amount of imagery and writing. The simulations and aptitude test areas were very well written and they gave a good sense of suspense and action. Overall, I found it fairly entertaining, but there were parts that I didn’t find very enjoyable.

            Divergent isn’t a children’s book so I’d have to recommend it to people from 16-21. The book also has a pretty deep plot, so it’s not something a lower level reader would have a good time following or trying to comprehend. It’s also not a short book at all so the reader would have to allocate some time to pick it up.