This book presents a future where society has been split up among several different factions, and at some point everybody has go through a simulation that determines which faction they should chose to join and live out the rest of their lives. Those who can't be conclusively categorized to a faction is considered Divergent. When the main character, Beatrice, is found to be Divergent, she is warned that the word is equivalent to danger.
This can be a little off-putting at first, because the book jumps right into the story, and it's hard to fully grasp some of the concepts without much exposition. Reading the first so-many pages, I can't help but to wonder more about what kind of world this is, why people in the Abnegation faction were so stiff, why everybody in Dauntless were so mean, and why being Divergent is so dangerous. Just when I was beginning to think that the plot was bland and the characters were being too unreasonable, the book does dish up some good reasoning for its depictions, and after a while, I grew more and more immersed in the book's settings and ideas. Before long, I found myself whipping through the pages. It is a very easy read - the book is not very wordy at all, it is very sparing with the details, and the narrative is breezy. What keeps it consistently engrossing are the relentless amounts of conflict, both external and internal. It can be an addicting read, to see what will happen next to the characters, or to see what secrets they uncover.
If it all seems familiar, the book does follow some of the tropes of standard YA fiction - this is another tale of a young woman who has to train hard, learn lessons, grow into a fearless heroine, all before confronting a greater conflict (much like The Hunger Games in a way). However, Divergent differentiates itself well, thanks to its settings, situations, and characters. This is actually a fairly brutal book; with the characters initiated in the toughest faction around, nearly every chapter sees Beatrice getting punched, kicked, humiliated, put into a really scary fear simulation, or ultimately losing a whole bunch of loved ones. The world of the Dauntless came off as an unreasonably mean faction (although it turned out that there may be a reason for that). It got to the point where I wanted to see the character be triumphant, and the book generally did not disappoint. It was always refreshing to see her overcome all these adversities, and it kept me engaged all the way to its cliffhanger ending. In spite of all this, I would say that the character development is decent, and the plotting is not bad at all.
The book is written with a spartan style; it shows its strength the best through the dialogue and characterization, but the text can be rather skimpy with the finer details. It is admirable that the book leaves things open to the readers' imaginations, but I personally would have appreciated a little more description, especially in the book's opening chapters, to become better oriented in the settings.
Even if it doesn't seem like more of the same and doesn't have terribly sophisticated writing, the book is a thrilling and easy read, and it successfully kept me invested enough to keep wanting more. It's worth a look.
4/5 (Entertainment: Perfect | Story: Pretty Good | Book: Pretty Good)
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