Divergent is a dystopian novel taken place in a futuristic Chicago that is split into 5 factions. Amity who believes in peace, Candor who believes in honesty, Erudite who believes in knowledge, Abnegation who believes in selflessness, and Dauntless who believes in bravery. Each year every 16 year old goes to take a the Aptitude Test that should tell them what faction they belong to, the next day they go and choose which faction they want to join. In Beatrice’s case, the test was supposed to decide where she goes, but when she finds out she is Divergent (which means that she doesn’t belong to faction), things get a whole lot more difficult, but she finds herself choosing Dauntless anyway. When she gets to the Dauntless headquarters, she meets mysterious Four for the first time, who ends up being her trainer. She also picks a new name for herself (Tris). Each faction has their own initiation, and in Dauntless’ case it covers three main topics; physical, emotional, and mental. As initiation goes on, Tris finds herself at the top. The night after initiation is over, she finds herself in the middle of a huge problem that involves Erudite brainwashing practically all of the Dauntless people so they will help fight in their attempt to overthrow Abnegation. Because Tris is Divergent, the serum that was used to brainwash the Dauntless people doesn’t affect her and she finds herself temporarily reuniting with Four and struggling to save her family and stop the Erudite. Luckily Tris is able to stop the simulation and get the chip, but since Jeanine (the leader of Erudite) is still alive, she could possibly make the serum again.

I have to admit, when I first decided to read Divergent, I was kind of skeptical, considering that when I first heard about it, it was from my cousins. It’s one of those books where so much happens that you can’t really begin to describe it with very much justice, so they basically sat there most of the time trying to decide the best way to describe it to me. I can tell you right now that they did not explain the book to me very well at all. With what they said in mind, I never would have guessed that it would be one of those few books that you find in your life that is perspective changing, but boy was I wrong. In many ways, this book made me stronger. It helped me learn stuff about myself that made me realize the person I want to be. If you haven’t already seen the movie, I suggest you do because it is amazing. It is easily my favorite movie, but I would suggest reading the book first, it goes into a lot more detail. Although I thought the movie was absolutely amazing, I was still a little disappointed with some of the things they left out, like the character Uriah. It made me kind of mad because I really liked Uriah and even though he isn’t the biggest character in Divergent, he grows and becomes more important in the next books. Another thing they changed is that in the book when they are playing capture the flag, Christina takes the flag instead of Tris, which causes a little tension between them for a while. I also think that some of the factions could’ve been put together a little better. They made some changes to the movie, and added a couple things, but none of them were outrageous enough for me to sit here and complain about them to you.