A review by lawbooks600
Divergent by Veronica Roth

4.0

Trigger warnings: Death of a mother, death of a child, childbirth, blood depiction, near-death experiences, fire, gun violence, death from a fall
Update: No the previous edition wasn't damaged or lost, it was just given away for this edition to replace it.

7/10, I've been wanting to read this for so long and I almost thought I never would after the previous edition got lost or damaged but they replaced it and it was such a good read, so interesting and unique and still holds up more than 10 years after it was first published, where do I even begin. It starts slowly with the main character Beatrice Prior or Tris for short and she lives in one of the five factions of this world called Abnegation and there are four others which I'll get to later. Only a few pages in and Tris doesn't feel Abnegation is right for her since that's all about selflessness and humility and it's anti-indulgence so during the Choosing Ceremony she chooses Dauntless since it's just being brave but that's not the full picture. The other three factions are Erudite, the smart one, Amity, the kind one, and Candor, the truth-telling one and they all came to be when humanity decided that personality is the root of all conflict, I just don't believe that reason though. Even after they made this world-changing thing conflict still happens within this world, what was the point other than to show it was kind of a questionable decision?

Most of the book revolves around Tris experiencing the Dauntless initiation thing and at first everything looks fine until she starts the simulations and according to the other characters something is off about her, she's Divergent hence the title. The latter half is just so brutal and fast-paced yet somehow the author shoehorned in a little romance with another person named Tobias or Four but I didn't really relate to that, besides that Tris experiences so much torture I could feel bad for her but it was also to really test her strength. The villain only shows up towards the end when she spreads rumours about Abnegation which everyone believes and now the Erudite faction wants to use the Dauntless people to their advantage. Fortunately, Tris manages to break the mind control ending the book on a high note.