Nada A. reviewed on 12/20/2013 + 1389 more book reviews

Review first published on my blog: http://memoriesfrombooks.blogspot.com/2013/12/divergent.html

Beatrice Prior lives in Chicago - a dystopian Chicago of the future. The society has been divided into factions based on certain personality characteristics and the development of that characteristic.

Abnegation focuses on being selfless. Amity focuses on remaining peaceful. Candor focuses on valuing honesty. Erudite focuses on learning. The Dauntless are the brave.

At age 16, all children of all factions are tested to determine the appropriate faction choice. Then, they are allowed to choose.

Beatrice is born into Abnegation, but on her sixteenth birthday, makes a surprising choice to leave her family. What follows is her trial period and training for her new faction. Along the way comes rumblings of dissatisfaction among the factions, and ideas that perhaps things should be different. Choices made impact Beatrice's future, her family, and perhaps the future of the society as a whole.

The target audience for this book is the young adult market. This story is engaging and entertaining. It certainly pulls you in and is action packed. The plot line for this book is very brief, occurring at the beginning when Beatrice makes her choice and towards the end - which I won't say to avoid a spoiler. The remainder of the book is focused on the often violent, competitive training for Beatrice and her group of initiates.

The action, and the sometimes violent descriptions of the action, take over the story. These sequences become the center point of the book rather than the plot line. That, for me, was the difficult part of the book. I am interested enough to read book 2 to see if and how the story develops further, but I hope that the following books focus more on a plot.

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