Austin Henry
April 8, 2014

Divergent
Book By: Veronica Roth

Roth, Veronica. Divergent. HarperCollins Publishers, 2011

Divergent starts us off with meeting Beatrise Prior. She, her parents, and her brother all live in the faction of Abnegation. They have no TVs, no iPhones, and one mirror that is usually hidden somewhere in their house. She is sixteen now and all teenagers her age have to take an aptitude test to determine which faction they belong in. But the problem is, Tris is Divergent, meaning she hides the fact that she doesn’t belong in any faction. Not Dauntless, not Abnegation, yet not factionless.

A theme that Veronica Roth is trying to tell is is controlling government. Each faction has it’s own faction leader. Depending on each faction, there’s the straightforward power of Dauntless, who beat people up and destroy things. Then there’s the more complicated, more manipulative power of Erudite, who want to control things, either through newspapers changing people’s opinions or just controlling people’s minds directly.

My favorite character is Four. He is brave, smart, and the only other person like Tris, Divergent. Tris and Four have a strong relationship with each other. I think they are the best fictional couple in all of the world of books I have ever read. I actually like this book, that’s kind of hard thinking about because I strongly dislike reading. This book seriously grabbed my attention. It was like I couldn’t put down the book, one minute I was on page 262, and the next thing I know, I’m on page 307. It was almost magical.

My guiding questions are ‘Is controlling government scary? How does controlling government work? What is exactly is controlling government? ’’ Well, yeah, controlling government is scary, this crazy man or woman controls you. You listen and live, or resist and die. Controlling government can be scary only if you make it scary. Controlling government is, well, controlling.