Imagine a future Chicago that is recognizable only by the remains of the former Sears Tower and Hancock Building. That is the setting of this harrowing, haunting first novel. Beatrice Prior has grown up in the Abnegation faction, where her father serves as a council member. In this dystopian society, the citizens are organized into five factions that were established "to eradicate those qualities they believed responsible for the world's disarray." Now that she is 16, Beatrice must choose which faction to call home. First she submits to an aptitude test, which will indicate the faction best suited to her character traits. Beatrice's test results are "inconclusive"; she could go with any of three factions. But her test administrator tells Beatrice that her results mean she is "Divergent.... Being a Divergent is extremely dangerous," she warns. Beatrice must not confide her test results to anyone.
Roth shows Beatrice's fascination with Dauntless from the first pages. She's drawn to their reckless leaps from moving trains, their black attire and tattoos, as opposed to her plain haircut and gray uniform, which signals the selflessness of Abnegation. So the heroine's decision to leave her family, while difficult, is not a surprise. Instead, the surprises come from the new trappings "Tris" takes on in Dauntless and her process of figuring out which parts of her old self she wishes to keep and which to shed. As the guards of society's borders, the Dauntless initiation is violent and sometimes mentally abusive. Like Katniss in The Hunger Games, Tris must find her own moral compass. To her astonishment, Tris discovers that bravery and selflessness are "often... the same thing." Riveting.--Jennifer M. Brown