Divergent by Veronica Roth

I bought Divergent as one of my ‘stab in the dark’ choices. I barely looked at the back cover, glancing briefly to make sure it wasn’t a Twilight knockoff before adding it to the large pile of books I wanted to buy.
As a result, it’s been sitting in my ‘to read’ pile for a while, looking at me forlornly. I’m generally less optimistic about books I don’t know anything about. But I decided to pick it up for a spot of lunchtime reading. Sometime later, I put it down again, having finished, and realised it was dark outside. All in all, with a few breaks, it took me just over six hours to read Divergent and that is a test to its quality, not its length.
It’s a tasty mix of The Hunger Games, Inside Out and Harry Potter. There’s a good deal of violence, a love story and a very well built world. It, like the aforementioned Hunger Games, manages to have a fantasy feel without ever going beyond the bounds of what a human can do. There’s desperation, decisions not entirely thought through and something going on at the top that isn’t quite kosher. You won’t find dragons, magic or gods here. Just people.
Divergent is set in a world that could be ours if you add in a massive war and a serious change in politics. The people are split into five group depending on what they think would heal the world: selflessness, happiness, knowledge, truth or courage. That’s the bit that reminds me most of Harry Potter - them gryffindors are all about the courage. Anyway, our heroine and family belongs to the selfless faction, but when she reaches the age of sixteen she gets to choose her faction. If she chooses any other faction than her own, she’ll be cutting most ties with her family. People who change faction are not well liked.
Annnnd that’s all I’m going to say about the plot. Because if I said anything more, it would ruin the book. The blurb is equally evasive and I can’t help but applaud that decision. You really should know as little about this book before you dive in. Because even our heroine’s choice in faction is not certain.
That said, some of the reveals are easy to see coming but it didn’t ruin my enjoyment one iota. They weren’t big plot points, just bits about characters that I guessed sometime in advance of the reveal. The main reveal was pretty well camouflaged.
My only real complaint would be that the build up to the ending was very short and not particularly large. That said I’m eagerly awaiting the second book, out on the first of May.