# data[].attributes.body
Genre - young adult dystopian science fiction

Setting - This book is based in a post-apocalyptic Chicago, we learn this from imagery used about the tall buildings and "the bean." This book is set in a futuristic world where society is divided into 5 factions. Abnegation which values selflessness, Amity which values kindness, Erudite which values knowledge, Candor which values honesty, and Dauntless which values courage. Each of the factions headquarters look differently, we mainly get to explore Abnegation and Dauntless. The Abnegation sector is full of buildings that look the same, and everything is dull and grey. This is because standing out is a sign of selfishness. The Dauntless headquarters is a compound that has rock walls, chasms with rushing water, cliffs, and tattoo parlors, shooting ranges, fighting arenas etc.
The settings are important because they help the readers better understand the values of each faction. Each faction is laid out in a way that every little thing ties back to their core ideals. The setting as a whole is important because it helps the readers better picture the city as the travel by train. Also, understanding the post-apocalyptic Chicago imagery helps the readers better picture the events as Tris and Four are at the ferris wheel, When Tris and Uriah go ziplining, etc.

# data[].attributes.body
Tris's real name is "Beatrice" but she changes it to "Tris" on her first day of Dauntless initiation. She's intelligent, she's selfless, she's brave, but most of all she's Divergent. This means that her brain is wired differently, and she carries character traits that represent multiple factions. In the world of this book, Tris is considered dangerous to the leaders of the factions. She is the main character of the story, and the book is told from her point of view.

# data[].attributes.body
Four's real name is Tobias, which we learn towards the end of the book. Four was top of his class during his initiation, and we meet him in the book as Eric's second in command while training the initiates. He is mysterious, strong, but kind. We learn that Four is also Divergent, and also that he was a transfer from Abnegation just like Tris. Tris and Tobias become love interests.

# data[].attributes.body
Eric was in the same initiation class as Tobias, but he ranked second. After initiation he became a Dauntless leader. Eric is selfish, cruel, jealous, and hateful. He's been jealous of Four ever since he outranked him. Because of this, Four and Eric disagree on many terms. Eric was a transfer from Erudite, and he and Jeanine work hand in hand during the war on Abnegation.

# data[].attributes.body
Jeanine is the leader of the Erudite. She is incredibly intelligent. However she is also incredibly manipulative. She is develops a serum that puts the entire Dauntless faction under mind control, and a separate serum to control Tobias who is divergent. Jeanine is cruel and emotionally cold. She looks at people as statistics instead of as individuals.

# data[].attributes.body
This book is told in first person by a character named Beatrice. She lives in a futuristic world where the population is separated into 7 different groups called factions. Beatrice turned 16 a couple days ago, which means it’s time to get tested to see what faction you are best in, and then choose accordingly. She belongs to the faction called Abnegation, which values selflessness. Beatrice loves her family, but has never felt genuine in her faction. She goes to her aptitude test, and is put through a simulation of events. The simulation is supposed to rule out factions as it goes on. However, Beatrice responded strangely to the tests and showed traits of Abnegation, Erudite (knowledge), and Dauntless (courage). This makes her “divergent.” Which the testing lady says is dangerous and she needs to keep it a secret. Beatrice walks home and on her way home has a scary encounter with a “factionless” (homeless) man. He grabs her wrist after asking for food and tells her to choose wisely tomorrow. Beatrice and her brother Caleb are home from the testing day. As they are sitting at dinner with their parents, they aren’t allowed to speak, because that would be selfish. However, Beatrice blurts a couple things out anyways. After dinner, Beatrice and her brother are sent to their rooms to “think.” Beatrice is sure Caleb doesn’t have much to think about, he’ll for sure choose Abnegation tomorrow. However, before they go into their rooms, Caleb tells Beatrice that it’s time to think about themselves, which was extremely unordinary. At the choosing ceremony this guy named Marcus who is listing off names in backwards alphabetical order. One by one people go up and slice their hands with a knife and drip their blood in the bowl dedicated to the faction they are choosing. When Caleb goes up he very surprisingly sprinkles his blood in the bowl for Erudite. Beatrice and many are shocked, he was such a good Abnegation, but I guess this explains his comment the night before and the books Beatrice saw in his room. Beatrice goes up and chooses Dauntless. After the ceremony initiation begins. They all go out and hop on a train, one of the new initiates didn’t make it, and just like that became factionless. Then once they reached their destination they had to jump off the train onto a roof. Another initiate doesn’t do it and becomes factionless. We meet this girl on the train, Caroline who is also a new initiate. Once on the roof, this guy who appears to be the leader tells them that in order to prove their bravery they must jump off of this ledge when they can’t see the bottom. Beatrice goes first, which was unheard of since she was coming from Abnegation. When she gets to the bottom she meets a guy who was waiting for the initiates. He asks her her name and she changes her name to “Tris.” This guy's name was Four and he gives the initiates a tour of the place. Four is intimidating, but not as intimidating as Eric, who we meet during a meal. He is one of the leaders of the Dauntless, him and Four seem to have some tension. The initiates try to get some sleep, but it's hard for Tris because she is used to sleeping in silence, but she can hear people breathing and this big guy named Al sobbing. The next day they start their initiation. Eric is one of their main supervisors, along with Four. Their first task is to learn how to shoot a gun. It takes Tris lots of tries to hit the Target, and she gets made fun of by this Erudite boy. Then after lunch, they start learning how to fight. Four shows them different punches, and then they practice with punching bags. One big thing about initiation is that they are being judged and rank and only the top ten initiates can become members, otherwise you are factionless. After the first day of initiation, Christina decides it's time for Tris's makeover, and they go try on dresses, Tris gets her hair cut, and Christina puts eyeliner on her. She looks like a totally different person, and wonders what her mom would think if she saw her. Then the girls go to watch Al get a tattoo, but while there Tris is approached by this girl named Tori who says they need to talk. Then she asks Tris if she wants a tattoo. Tris really hadn't wanted one until this moment, but then decides that she would like a tattoo of three birds. One for each member of her family that she left behind. The first day of initiation had been shooting guns and punching bags. The second day of initiation is when it's time for them to start punching each other. However, there is an odd number of initiates so one person wasn't going to fight and that someone was Tris. She watches as Al knocks out Will, and Christina gets beat up by Molly. When Christina surrenders to Molly, Eric decides to test her cowardness and makes her hang from a bar above the chasm for five minutes. If she lets go, she dies. The initiates watch anxiously as she struggles to hold on, but she makes it the five minutes so Tris and Al help her back over the bar. The second day, Tris is assigned to fight Peter. Peter is one of the meanest and most skilled initiates. He also is already known to bully Tris for being a stiff, this fight already isn't going well. As expected, Peter wins, and Tris is in really bad shape. She wakes up the next morning to Christina and Al sitting over her, checking on her. Her and Al share a brief conversation, Al seems to have a crush on Tris. Tris doesn't feel the same way, but she talks with Al as a friend and makes sure he is okay. After all, Al still cries every night, and though he's big and tough, he doesn't like hurting people. The next day all of the initiates are taken on a field trip to view the different jobs that they can have as Dauntless after initiation. A truck pulls up beside them on the way of Amity members and Beatrice recognizes one of them. After the field trip, as they are about to go to sleep, they are woken up again and taken on a second field trip. This time to play a traditional Dauntless game, capture the flag, but with paintball guns involved too because why not. The team captains are Eric and Four and they pick their members. Tris is on Four's team. While everyone starts to argue about strategies, Tris wanders off to seak higher ground. She starts climbing a ferris wheel and Four follows her.  They share conversation, Tris is very curious about Four's life, but Four isn't one for talking about himself. However, Tris does learn that Four has a fear of heights, and is only following her because he is as curious about her life as she is of his. They get to the top and they see the area that the other team's flag is being guarded in.  On the way back down, Four makes it, but the bar Tris was hanging on breaks, and she is slipping. Four turns on the wheel and saves her. They laugh because they could've turned it on in the beginning. They go back to the rest of the team and let them know what they saw and the game begins. Four's team wins and Tris lets Christina take the flag. The next day of initiation is knife throwing. They are all getting the hang of it except Al. Eric gets really mad at Al and tells him to go pick up his knives in the midst of everyone chucking them. Al refuses, so Eric wants to test his cowardice. He tells Al to stand at the target while Eric throws knives at him, and he won't stop until Al learns not to flinch. Tris knows this is too much for Al so jumps in to take Al's place. Four is given knives and begins throwing them at her. Only nicking her ear, which he did on purpose. The next day is another fighting day. However, Tris realizes she forgot her clothes when she came to the shower so she walks back to the dormitory in her towel only to see Peter, Molly, and Drew. These guys are the worst. They start bullying her and they take her towel forcing her to sprint back to her bed and try to find the dress that she hid underneath. She throws it on, but feels absolutely humiliated. When they get to the arena for fighting, Tris and Molly are put up against each other. Tris is so full of anger from this morning, she beats the crap out of her and actually has to get dragged away by Four. Tris didn't feel guilty at all for winning against Molly.  The next morning, Visiting Day has arrived. This is when the parents of initiates can visit their children to see how they are doing. Tris's mom comes to visit her, and when Tris introduces her to her supervisor, Four, Four reacts strangely. Anyways, then Tris's mom wants to talk to her somewhere more private and starts bringing Tris down series of hallways. Tris is confused as to how she knows where she is going. Tris's mom seems very concerned and asks about Tris's aptitude tests. Tris can trust her mom, so she tells her the truth that they were inconclusive. Tris's mom tells her that when she can, she needs to visit her brother Caleb and tell him to research the simulation serum. Before she leaves, she tells Tris to try the chocolate cake in the cafeteria. This is the moment Tris realized that her mother was born Dauntless. The next day the first set of rankings is released. Edward is first, Peter is second, Al is dead last, Molly is fifth, and Tris is sixth. Everyone is talking about them, some happy, some disappointed. Later that night, however, Peter is so mad he got second, he stabbed Edward in the eye with a butter knife. Edward couldn't handle it and so he and his best friend Myra quit Dauntless and became factionless. This guy named Uriah approaches Tris and invites her to come with him and some other Dauntless-born initiates to do something fun. She goes with, they hop on a train, and go to the city. Once there they take an elevator up to the 100th floor in a tall abandoned building. There is a zip-line going from their building to another building across the way. Everybody takes turns holding on and jumping off the building. It is a very scary and Dauntless thing to do. Once it is Tris's turn, she gets pushed and feels more alive than ever. She falls into the hands of the people who went before her and shouts with joy. Once everyone has gone, they go back ot headquarters. The next day it's time for stage 2 of initiation. Each member gets called in one by one to start it. Four calls Tris into the room and explains what's going to happen. She is going to be put into a simulation like the aptitude tests where she will have to face her fears. The simulation will feal real and won't stop until she can calm herself down and slow her heartbeat. She gets injected and suddenly she finds herself in a field being swarmed by crows. They painfully attack her, but in the midst of it Tris remembers she's in a simulation. She calms down and wakes up in the chair. Four tells her she was only under for three minutes which is strangely good. Then he says she'll be even better tomorrow. When she gets back to the dormitory, Peter is reading an article from Erudite about Tris's father. The Erudite have always had something against Abnegation, that becomes very important towards the end of the story. Tris gets angry, but her friends are there to help and they leave to go get tattoos of the Dauntless symbol. On their way back a second time, they encounter Four, but he is very drunk. He starts talking to Tris and it ends with him telling Tris she looks good. Tris and her friends are confused but they brush off the situation. Tris's next simulation she is in a case and water is pouring in and she is drowning. When the water gets above her shoulders she goes under and breaks the glass and falls out. She wakes up in the simulation chair and Four straight up looks at her and says "You're Divergent. Tris tries to deny it at first but he figured it out and told her she needs to start being really careful. Only divergent people can manipulate the simulations in stage 2. She needs to learn how to hide it during the simulations. Tris then goes to the tattoo place to talk to Tori. Tori tells her the story of how her brother was divergent and so the leaders killed him. Being divergent is no joke and Tris needs to be careful. The next day Tris is just taking it easy, until she realized that some progress rankings were posted in the dormitory. Tris's name is ranked first. Some people congratulate her, but others are filled with jealousy. Later in the day Tris is hiding behind a corner because she overhears some leaders talking about "Divergent rebels." Then Peter, Drew, and Al attack her from behind they bring her to the chasm and they start beating her. They are about to throw her over the edge when Four comes and fights all of them and saves Tris. When Tris wakes up she in in Four's room. He is letter her rest, and is taking care of her. Four tells Tris not to call her by the name she knows him as, this is foreshadowing for when we learn Four's real name. Tris sleeps at Four's place that night, when they wake up Tris walks into the dining hall first. When Four enters, he is acting weird, like there's not something between them. This confused Tris, but later we learn that it was to protect her. We also notice that Drew is a complete mess, Four really hurt him. After they eat they go to a room none of them have been in before. Four explains that they will be spending time in this room during stage three of initiation, where the first two stages of initiation are combined. It is designed to put you in a simulation where you will face your darkest fears, some you may not even know you have. When they went back to the dormitory, Tris could tell Al wasn't doing great. He started begging Tris for forgiveness because of the day before. Tris did not forgive him, she was very hurt by what he and the other two did. The next morning, Christina wakes up Tris in a panic. They go to the chasm to find out that Al had taken his own life and jumped over it. Tris, Christina, and Will are completely distraught. At Al's funeral they describe him as "the bravest." This angers Tris because they were glorifying suicide. In the midst of her panic, Four finds her and calms her down, also reminding her that she is being watched. The next day, Tris finds herself in curiosity, following Four down hallways. He knew she was there, and when they made it to the fear landscape (stage three) room, Four tells Tris to go into his fear landscape with him. Four tells her to figure out why they call him four, and what his real name is. They go through his fear landscape and after three of Four's fears, Marcus appears, and he is holding a belt, and he begins inching towards Four. Tris goes between them and protects Four from getting hit. Now Tris knows his real name, Marcus is from Abnegation and had a son that transferred to Dauntless, his name was Tobias. After the fourth fear the simulation. They call Tobias, Four, because he only has four fears. Then Four, now Tobias, takes Tris down to the bottom of the chasm to tell her more about himself. He says that his aptitude tests said he was Abnegation, but he chose Dauntless because he needed to get away from his father. They have a very sweet conversation, and their relationship just continues to develop. The next day the initiates are going to be taken through a leader's fear landscape to get a feel for what it's like. After going through the leader's landscape, Tris does not do well, she has a panic attack and is completely embarrassed. Four even yells at her and calls her pathetic. This makes Tris very upset so what does she do? She runs away. She hops on a train to Erudite headquarters and finds her brother. When she finds him, he is shocked to see his sister and takes her somewhere they can talk in private. Caleb being an older brother tells Tris that this was a terrible idea and she should not have run away. He also says that the air feels weird, he feels like something big is about to happen. Then before Tris leaves he tells him that mom wants him to research the simulation serum. Just as Tris was going to leave, two guards take her from behind and bring her to the Erudite leader, and villan of the story, Jeanine's office. She interrogates Tris about being divergent, and Tris has to fake her Dauntlessness through the whole things to save herself. Then she heads back to Dauntless. When she's back, Eric is waiting for her and he is mad. He begins interrogating Tris when Four comes to the rescue once again. Once they are alone, they officially declare themselves a couple, but still won't tell people. Later that night Tris and Tobias meet up because Tobias wants to show her something. They hop on a train back to Erudite. Tobias thinks that something big is happening, that they are planning a war on Abnegation. The next day is fear landscape day. Tris goes last, and we are taken through her darkest fears. She has seven, some of which we already knew from stage 2, some of which were new. One of the new ones was intimacy. One of the old ones was her family dying. In that fear she was holding a gun and was being forced to shoot her family, she ended up sacrificing herself for them, and then she woke up in the fear landscape room.  After she was done, they give her another shot, Eric says it's a tracking device.  The next day the final rankings come out. Tris is top of her class. In the midst of the celebrating Tris realizes something. She realizes how the Erudite are going to use the Dauntless to fight in their war. The next morning she wakes up, and everyone else in the dorm is awake too but they are silent. Everyone seems awake, but their facial expressions don't look awake at all. The serum is controlling them, but it doesn't control Tris because she is Divergent. She knows that she has to mimic their every move. She follows them out the door, and she tries to find Tobias. She sees his at the trains, she moves over to the train he's in and when he pulls her up, he is as blank as everyone else. That's when Tris felt him grab her hand and squeeze, confirming that he is also Divergent. Once off the train again, Eric presses a gun to Tobias's head. Tris intervenes giving away their Divergency and they run. They get captured and taken to Jeanine's office immediately. Tris got shot in the process. Once in Jeanine's office, They inject Tobias with a serum that will control his Divergency, and they send Tris off to get executed. Tris gets knocked out and when she wakes she is the drowning tank from her fear landscapes. She is accepting her fate just as her mother comes in and breaks the glass and saves her. They run and Tris's mom tells her where the others are hiding. They are almost there when they started being chased by the Dauntless. Tris's mom tells Tris to run, and she covers for her. Tris's mom gets shot and dies. Tris is now being charged at by more Dauntless, one of them being Will, but it isn't really Will, and Tris is forced to kill him to save herself. She runs to where her mother told her to go and finds her brother, and her father, and Marcus, and other Abnegation. Caleb fixes her bullet wound, and then everyone comes up with a plan to escape to the Amity headquarters. However, Tris, Caleb, their dad, and Marcus are going to end this war and meet everyone at Amity afterwards. The four of them are going to hop on the train back to the Dauntless headquarters, that's where they are being controlled from, so they simply need to destroy the computers. They make it back to Dauntless but the safest way to get in there is going to be how Tris did the first day of initiation. They have to jump onto the roof. Everyone does, and then they jump off the roof down into the net. Then they begin their dangerous journey to the computers, which are being heavily guarded. One of the people guarding is Peter. Tris shoots Peter in the arm, and he tells them where the computers are. Tris and her father go up there, they killed many guards. Unfortunately, one hallway away from the computers, Tris's dad shoots the last guard but in return also gets shot himself. Now both of Tris's parent are dead. Tris makes it into the computer room to find, Tobias. However, it's not really Tobias, he is being controlled by his serum, and his job is to work and defend the computers. When he sees Tris he attacks her, Tris twists his wrist to make him drop his gun. Then she aims the gun at him, but she won't shoot him, she wants him to wake up. She says his name over an over again and says "Tobias, it's me." And he wakes up and they share a moment but then snap back into action. Tobias shuts down the serums and steals the data so they can't start it again. Then they go back down to meet Caleb and Marcus, when Tobias and Marcus see eachother, Tris tells Marcus to stay away from him. Then they all simply hop back on a train and are on their way to Amity. Abnegation and Dauntless are divided and there's no clue what life will be like now. The book ends with Tris and Tobias saying that they love eachother, and taking a nap on the train.

# data[].attributes.body
Person vs Self

This conflict is centered around the character Al. Al was a new Dauntless transfer from Candor. From night one we start to see signs of depression shown by Al. Tris hears him crying every night, and he has terrible nightmares. Al's illness escalates quickly, even with him saying at one point, "I don't know what's wrong with me." Al became so much not like himself that he helped Peter and Drew attack Tris. After that event, Al begged Tris for forgiveness, which she could not find it in her heart to give. Al became very sick and unable to control his emotions and mental stability. Al ended up taking his own life by jumping into the chasm.

# data[].attributes.body
Person vs Society

After the aptitude test, Tori reveals to Beatrice that she is what they call "divergent." This means that her personality type cannot be defined by just one faction. Tori explains to Beatrice that this is very dangerous because to the leaders of the factions, and to society, being divergent is considered a threat. Society doesn't want people who are Divergent to exist because since their brains are so complicated, they can't be easily controlled. We see the effects of this in the book. Once we see this is during the stage 2 simulations. Tris is not supposed to be able to manipulate them, but she can. Four tells Tris to learn how to hide this to save herself. The other huge moment we see the dangers of Tris's divergency is during the war on Abnegation. The serum that put most of the Dauntless under mind control doesn't work on her. Tris has to strategize so that she doesn't stand out. Eric, Jeanine, and the other leaders notice, and they try to kill her. Tris ends up surviving and shutting down the serums that were affecting the other Dauntless. It is very clear that Tris being Divergent has made her need to dodge death on multiple occasions.

# data[].attributes.body
Person vs Person

This is a person vs person conflict, but I think it is better understood as a people vs people conflict because it is about the war. The Erudite believe that the Abnegation have been hogging up valuable resources for themselves instead of distributing them among the factions. To solve this problem, the Erudite began planning a war. In order to have a war, they needed to have soldiers. So, the Erudite formed an alliance with Dauntless and began their plan for attack. The Dauntless were put under a mind control serum, which transformed them into a perfect uniformed army. They marched into the streets of Abnegation and began killing innocent people. Abnegation is the faction that Tris was from, so it was time for her to fight to save her family and her old faction. The Dauntless kept hunting down Abnegation, as well as hunting down Tris and her family. Tris, Caleb, their father, and Marcus, escaped Abnegation to go back to the Dauntless headquarters and shut down the serum. Tris's mom, and father both died for the cause. Tris ends up finding Tobias and they shut down the serums. The remainder of the Abnegation people including Tris, Tobias, Caleb, and Marcus sought shelter in the Amity faction.

# data[].attributes.body
The most courageous thing you can do is be kind.

Tris transferred from a faction that values selflessness to a faction that values courage. After joining Dauntless she realized that the definition of bravery has been twisted. In the Dauntless manifesto it describes bravery as putting aside one's weakness to help others. However, in recent years bravery has been twisted to appear like nothing but violence and danger. Tris and Tobias hold the true definition close to their hearts. Tris shows her true bravery during stage 2 of initiation when they are throwing knives. Eric challenges Al to stand  at the target while he throws knives. Tris knows that Al can't handle that, so she does something courageous, she takes Al's place in front of the target.
Another time this theme was shown was at the end when Tris was alone with Tobias in the computer room. There was a war happening in the streets of Abnegation and Tris had to stop the computers that were controlling Tobias and the Dauntless soldiers. In order to save the world, Tris does something remarkably selfless yet brave. She surrenders her weapon to Tobias, who is being controlled by Erudite drugs. She lets down her guard, and then Tobias snaps out of mind control and they stop the serums.

"I have a theory that selflessness and bravery aren't all that different"
- Veronica Roth, Divergent

# data[].attributes.body
5/5 stars

I give this book a 5/5 stars because it was an amazing read. I'm saying this as someone who doesn't always enjoy reading, but this book had everything it needed to make me eager to continue the series. It has action, it has adventure, and it has a hint of romance. I'm also a big fan of the futuristic aspect of the setting, it had me curious from chapter one what was going to come of it. I would recommend this book to teens who are fans of books/movies such as The Maze Runner, Marvel, and The Hunger Games.

# data[].attributes.body
February 24, 2021

March 3, 2021

March 10, 2021