Divergent, published May 3, 2011, is the first book of the proposed Divergent trilogy, written by Veronica Roth. It is a dystopian

Utopian and dystopian fiction

The utopia and its offshoot, the dystopia, are genres of literature that explore social and political structures. Utopian fiction is the creation of an ideal world, or utopia, as the setting for a novel. Dystopian fiction is the opposite: creation of a nightmare world, or dystopia...

 thriller written for teens. Told from the perspective of Beatrice, a teenage girl, Divergent is set in Chicago

Chicago

Chicago is the largest city in the US state of Illinois. With nearly 2.7 million residents, it is the most populous city in the Midwestern United States and the third most populous in the US, after New York City and Los Angeles...

.

Plot Synopsis

Beatrice "Tris" Prior has reached the fateful age of sixteen, the stage at which teenagers in Veronica Roth's dystopian Chicago must select which of five factions to join for life. Each faction represents a virtue: Candor (Honesty), Abnegation (Selflessness), Dauntless (Bravery), Amity (Peaceful), and Erudite (Knowledge). To the surprise of herself and her selfless Abnegation family, she chooses Dauntless, the path of courage. Her choice exposes her to the demanding, violent initiation rites of this group, but it also threatens to expose a personal secret that could place her in mortal danger. Veronica Roth's young adult Divergent trilogy launches with a captivating adventure about love and loyalty playing out under most extreme circumstances.

Author

Veronica Roth was born August 19, 1988 and is from a Chicago suburb. She studied creative writing at Northwestern University, graduating in 2010. She sold Divergent while still an undergraduate. Summit Entertainment

Summit Entertainment

Summit Entertainment LLC is an independent film studio headquartered in Santa Monica, California with international offices in London.-History:...

 has bought the movie rights.

Critical reception

• "...brisk pacing, lavish flights of imagination and writing that occasionally startles with fine detail... Divergent clearly has thrills, but it also movingly explores a more common adolescent anxiety — the painful realization that coming into one’s own sometimes means leaving family behind, both ideologically and physically." --New York Times
• "B+; I'm hooked — and ready for the sequel." --Entertainment Weekly
  Entertainment Weekly
  Entertainment Weekly is an American magazine, published by the Time division of Time Warner, that covers film, television, music, broadway theatre, books and popular culture...
  
  
• “You’ll be up all night with Divergent, a brainy thrill-ride of a novel.” (BookPage )
• “A memorable, unpredictable journey from which it is nearly impossible to turn away.”— (Publishers Weekly (starred review)