Divergent

Divergent by Veronica Roth

Some sort of horrific war has occurred.  Chicago has a wall around it.  There is a gate in the wall and the lock is on the outside.  Everyone inside the wall lives in one of four factions.  A fifth faction lives outside the wall.

Beatrice is sixteen years old and today is the biggest day of her life.  She has grown up in the faction Abegnation in which the members give selflessly to others in time and service.  She will undergo an aptitude test which will tell her in which faction she belongs.  She then gets to choose and decide if she will follow the advice of the test or go into another faction.  The one thing she absolutely doesn't want is for the test to be inconclusive.  If that were to happen, she would be Divergent.

This is an engaging story.  Beatrice is like-able and believable as a sixteen year old girl who has grown up struggling to be selfless.  She sometimes behaves stupidly but so do all sixteen year old people.  This is a story about a girl growing into her own, coming of age in a dystopian world full of turmoil.

This book has been made into a movie and I am looking forward to seeing if the movie does justice to the story.