Trouble in the Windy City

Divergent by Veronica Roth
New York : Katherine Tegen Books, 2012, c2011.
487 p. ; 21 cm.

Okay, so the Chicago of Divergent is not quite the ruined city of the Great Fire of 1871 (picture above), but it is a run-down, post-war future Chicago where human society is structured around five factions representing five personality types - Erudite, Dauntless, Candor, Amity, and Abnegation.  

Veronica Roth has developed a great set-up for her novel, envisioning a society where the factions have developed ways to live in harmony by having each faction contribute to the well-being of society with their unique, but mutually beneficial roles, but since conflict is at the heart of a good novel, some faction leaders are not satisfied with the role of their faction and want to overturn the social order. Furthermore, every citizen must chose their faction and be initiated into it at the age of 16.  Most chose their faction of origin, but not everyone, and there's the rub.

There is a great deal to admire about Divergent.  The plotting is crisp, characters are interesting and usually multidimensional, and the setting is evocative and imaginative.  The narrative is rarely dull, and there are some thoroughly enjoyable imagined scenes of post-war Chicago, and excellent plot developments that keep the reader engaged.  Roth has also created a compelling heroine, Beatrice/Tris, who will definitely put readers in mind of Catniss from the Hunger Games. She is smart, complex, competitive, and develops throughout the novel.  My main frustration with the novel, is the ways in which the demands of leaving the novel open to a trilogy occasionally compromise the plot.  There were a couple of times toward the end of the novel where I thought to myself, "That character would never have done that," but felt like the action was required to keep certain other characters alive for future installments in the trilogy.

Overall, I would highly recommend Divergent, especially to any reader who is looking for a thrilling dystopian adventure.  The fact that the novel is set in our home state of Illinois - and is scheduled to be a feature film in 2014 - doesn't hurt either!