Divergent by: Veronica Roth

I just finished reading this book.  I really liked it because it had one of those fascinating plots.  Whenever I picked up this book I could never put it down!  There was always a surprise in every chapter.  In the book, the people of Chicago are split up into five fractions.  Each fraction is based on a certain characteristic that they think is most important.  The fractions are Candor (the honest), Abnegation (the selfless), Dauntless (the brave), Amity (the peaceful), and Erudite (the intelligent).  The morals of each fraction are supposed to be the opposite of what they think would cause war (which is feared by all of the people), but the morals have changed so that they are extreme for each fraction and all of the other beliefs in other fractions are ignored and considered bad.  The book is set in Chicago, but it is in the future so Chicago looks is very different from now.  This is another reason why I loved this book, because it is set in where I live now, so I can relate to the places that Beatrice goes.  In the time of the book Chicago is not as much of a city as it is now.  The lake is a giant swap, and the river is just thick mud.  Most of the buildings are not in use because the five fractions like to stay to themselves in their headquarters.  The Sears Tower is called the Hub.  The Hub is where all of the kids go to school, and one of the only places where the fractions meet.  Divergent is about a sixteen year old girl named Beatrice Prior.  She lives in Abnegation with her selfless family.  She has trouble being selfless all of the time though.  Sometimes she gets frustrated that her mom, dad, and twin brother, Caleb, can be selfless so easily, but she cannot.  She wonders that she might not be in selfless enough to be part of that fraction.  Then the time for the choosing ceremony comes.  This is when all of the sixteen year olds take a mental test to find out what fraction they fit in, and then choose which one they want.  The kids are not allowed to have any preparation for the test, so Beatrice does not know what to expect.  When she finally takes the test she is very scared because she has to make some very important decisions.  I want to tell you what decisions she makes but that would be spoiling the story.  When she is finally done, the lady doing the test tells Beatrice that her test results were inconclusive, so multiple fractions fit her.  This means that she is divergent.  The lady tells her that being divergent is very dangerous, so she cannot tell anyone.  Beatrice starts to get really scared.  She already has to chose between the fractions, and she is something that is dangerous for her.  All day she tries to decided wether she should chose Dauntless (the brave), which would mean leaving her family, or Abnegation (the selfless), which would mean staying with her family but struggling to be selfless all of the time. when the choosing ceremony comes, everyone is watching Beatrice, and she is scrambling through her head which fraction she wants to be in.  she finally surprised everyone by picking Dauntless.  That was only two chapters of the book.  The rest of the book is about the journeys Beatrice makes in her new fraction.  She changes her name to Tris, and does many daring deeds that even she is surprised she was capable of doing.  She also has to make it through a series of training and tests to make sure that she fits in her fraction, before officially becoming a member. Within this book there are many twists of turns, which makes reading this book so fun.  Also there is a little romance which makes it even more exciting.  I think that it is similar, but better than the Hunger Games.  I really suggest you read this book even if you do not typically read these types of books.  I know because my friend recommended this book and I was hesitant to read it but ended up loving it.