Divergent Series

Divergent, Insurgent, and Allegiant by Veronica Roth, 489, 525, and 526

First off Yes I started reading these because of the movies, and even more so because they continued to make the series. In fact most of the young adult fiction I have read is because they made it into a movie. In fact you will see even more of it this month with my later review of City of Bone and City of Ashes.

The Divergent series is about a post apocalyptic city society that has divided itself into factions. But unlike the factions we see today the divisions are based on aptitude. Those that value knowledge go to Erudite, honesty to Candor, peace to Amity, selflessness to Abnegation and courage to Dauntless.
Each faction runs part of the city. Abnegation provides the member for the overseeing council and social work, Erudite provide researchers, teachers and scientist, Dauntless provide security, Candor provides lawyers and finally Amity grows all the food.
People are divided up on their sixteenth year when they choose, by blood, which fraction they will join. Before the choosing they live with their parents fraction but are not members of that fraction. A change of fraction appears pretty rare and can result in that child immediately being disowned by their family. A saying used quite often is "Faction before Blood" meaning loyalty to the faction before your previous family.

The series follows the life of Beatrice Prior as she chooses her new fraction and finds out that the fractions, and in fact the entire city is not what she has been taught. I could go into more detail but by now most everyone has seen the movie or read the book. If you are one of those few that have not done either, then I would suggest reading the book before watching the movie.

Overall this is a decently thought out and enjoyable young adult novel that I truly enjoyed. Being marketed for teens there are some questionable first romances and an ending of innocence but nothing too overdone that detracts from the story. I found that the series itself also goes though a growing up. Where the first book is about exploring who you are and accepting life, the second is certainly about how life is ever changing and at times, difficult. Finally the third book is more about accepting loss and continuing on through hardship. I would recommend this book to teens and up.