Divergent
Veronica Roth (2011)
“In a world divided by personality, a girl who fits nowhere must choose who she will become — and that choice will start a revolution.”
At a Glance
In a future Chicago, sixteen-year-old Beatrice 'Tris' Prior lives in Abnegation, the selfless faction, but has never felt like she belongs. At the Choosing Ceremony she shocks everyone by transferring to Dauntless, the brave. Through brutal initiation, she falls in love with her instructor Four, discovers she is Divergent — able to think across multiple factions — and uncovers a plot by Erudite to use a mind-control serum to massacre Abnegation and seize control of the government. The attack kills her parents and forces Tris to shoot her friend Will to survive. The novel ends with Tris and Four on a train fleeing the ruin of the only world they've known.
Read full summary →Why This Book Matters
Divergent debuted on the New York Times bestseller list in 2011 and eventually sold over 35 million copies worldwide. It was adapted into a film franchise beginning in 2014. As a cultural artifact, it represents the peak of the YA dystopian wave that followed The Hunger Games — and is now studied alongside it as a primary text of early twenty-first-century adolescent anxieties about identity, conformity, and institutional control.
Diction Profile
Informal and direct — plain American YA prose, few decorative flourishes, strong interiority
Moderate