After skimming through the summary, I'm surprised that it reminds me of the Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins, one of my favorite books. They are both dystopic young adult novels centering around a strong heroine with a keen and incredible instinct for survival, but that's where the similarities end. After consuming the book in literally a day, I can safely say that Divergent has it's own unique identity.
In Beatrice's world, society is divided into 5 factions: Abnegation, Erudite, Candor, Dauntless, and Amity, which are those who value selflessness, intelligence, honesty, bravery, and peace, respectively. The people in these factions act accordingly if not adhere strictly to their "personality" in an attempt to form the "perfect society".
My first impression was that it would seem illogical to categorize each individual human being into one of these categories. If you think about it, we all have more than one of these traits, if not all, in each of us. Of course that disregard for human complexity proves to be the fatal flaw in this ideology. Beatrice and those who turned 16 that year, has to take a test to determine which faction they belong to. Everyone has one result and it is kept a secret; however, they may choose a different faction to join at the initiates ceremony. Beatrice's result, however, was met with complications as it is inconclusive, making her a Divergent, something she is told is extremely dangerous. She has to fight to keep that secret from ever surfacing, else her life would be in danger.
I won't spoil the rest of the story, but I would recommend all Hunger Games fans to pick this book up! It's an excellent read. It is not yet at the level of the Hunger Games series, but most definitely almost there!
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