Book Blog #4: Divergent by Veronica Roth

The Premise

Picture this. You're in a room standing on a stage with hundreds of people watching your every move. In front of you stands five huge, metal bowls. Each one contains a substance for each faction. Factions are groups that state exactly who you are. The bowls hold gray stones for Abnegation, water for Erudite, earth for Amity, coals for Dauntless, and glass for candor. A while ago war broke out and each faction blamed a different thing which grew them even more apart. Those who blamed aggression formed Amity. Those who blamed ignorance became the Erudite. The people whom blamed duplicity created Candor. From blaming cowardice, the Dauntless formed. And those who blamed selfishness made Abnegation. Everything falls silent. There is an irritating ringing sound that won't stop and it's keeping you from hearing a thing. The only other person on stage is a man and he nods to you telling you 'no pressure but you have to choose'. He hands you a knife and you accept it knowing that you have to spill your blood in one of the bowls. A few days ago you took a test that should have made this much easier. Although, the assistant told you that you were different. Divergent... that's what they called you. You still remember her tense, twisted face as she told you. She also told you that under no circumstance can you share the information. The test hadn't told you one faction, it told you three. Abnegation. Dauntless. And Erudite. The knife shakes in your palms beaded with sweat. You force yourself to stay still and grit your teeth as you drag the knife down. It stings. You walk over in-between the Dauntless bowl and the Abnegation bowl. You spot your parents in the audience and notice they are on the edge of their seats. Quickly, you thrust your hand forward and your blood sizzles on the coals creating a putrid scent.
You are cowardless. You are Dauntless.
In this dystopian book, Beatrice Prior is living in Chicago, Illinois. Although, in this time, it's in the future and the area where everybody lives is locked up. The people say it's because they are keeping things out, but really, Beatrice thinks they are keeping the people in. This book is very similar to The Hunger Games. There are five factions and every year, the sixteen-year-olds have to take a test to determine their fate. If they fail to join a faction, the teen becomes factionless for the rest of their life and they are dishonored and put to shame. Beatrice takes the test but comes up with strange and very rare results. She is divergent. Abnegation, Dauntless, and Erudite. When the ceremony comes to present her faction, she makes a hair choice and chooses Dauntless. From there on she has to pass a fitness test, feel the adrenaline, and do crazy stunts. As Beatrice arrives at the Dauntless home, she changes her whole frame of self. She now calls herself Tris. The main characters are Tris who was originally Abnegation and is very loyal and open-minded, then there is Four who is a young, fearless, and fit coach, and also included is her best friend Christina, she is very talkative, swift, and bubbly. The conflict has not occurred yet.

Significant Passage

"…Beatrice, your results were inconclusive,” she says. “Typically, each stage of the simulation eliminates one or more of the factions, but in your case, only two have been ruled out.”
I stare at her. “Two?” I ask. My throat is so tight it’s hard to talk.
“If you had shown an automatic distaste for the knife and selected the cheese, the simulation would have led you to a different scenario that confirmed your aptitude for Amity. That didn’t happen, which is why Amity is out.” Tori scratches the back of her neck. “Normally, the simulation progresses in a linear fashion, isolating one faction by ruling out the rest. The choices you made didn’t even allow Candor, the next possibility, to be ruled out, so I had to alter the simulation to put you on the bus. And there your insistence upon dishonesty ruled out Candor.” She half smiles. “Don’t worry about that. Only the Candor tell the truth in that one.”
One of the knots in my chest loosens. Maybe I’m not an awful person.
“I suppose that’s not entirely true. People who tell the truth are the Candor…and the Abnegation,” she says. “Which gives us a problem.”My mouth falls open.
“On the one hand, you threw yourself on the dog rather than let it attack the little girl, which is an Abnegation-oriented response…but on the other, when the man told you that the truth would save him, you still refused to tell it. Not an Abnegation-oriented response.” She sighs. “Not running from the dog suggests Dauntless, but so does taking the knife, which you didn’t do.”
She clears her throat and continues. “Your intelligent response to the dog indicates strong alignment with the Erudite. I have no idea what to make of your indecision in stage one, but—”
“Wait,” I interrupt her. “So you have no idea what my aptitude is?”
“Yes and no. My conclusion,” she explains, “is that you display equal aptitude for Abnegation, Dauntless, and Erudite. People who get this kind of result are…” She looks over her shoulder like she expects someone to appear behind her. “…are called…Divergent.” She says the last word so quietly that I almost don’t hear it, and her tense, worried look returns, ( Roth 37)."

This passage is one of the most important in the book. Before this Beatrice took a test that was suppose to make what faction you were destined to clear... but it didn't. In the beginning of the test, Beatrice is transported into her school cafeteria. In front of here were to baskets containing a hunk of cheese and in the other, a dagger. She is asked to choose one, but of course, her stubbornness gets the best of her and they both disappear. The door squeaks and a violent dog comes bursting in through the door. It slows in front of her and growls. Beatrice didn't run, nor did she wrestle it. It was only logical to show the dog she wasn't a threat. She slumped to the ground and the dog's growling stopped. It worked. She closed her eyes for a spit-second and when she opened them, a little girl called to the dog, yelling "doggy". The dog began to pounce on her but Beatrice wasn't going to let that happen. She hurled her body on top of the dog, saving the little girl. The next the next thing she knew, she was in a bus with not one empty seat. A man looked at her and asked, " do you know this guy", while pointing to a murderer sign. She though she might have recognized the man but wasn't certain. Besides, she knew it would be a bad idea to tell him. "Nope, she replied. The man's jaw clenched in anger as he yelled "your lying". "Please, you can save my life", he screamed. And Beatrice just replied, " well I don't". That was the end of the faction test.
In this passage, Beatrice gets the astonishing results of the test. After her mentor leaves to get the results, her mentor  comes back startled and tells her that her results were inconclusive. She told Beatrice that hardly anybody got these result. She finds out, she's divergent. The mood for me was anxious. The mentor wouldn't say what Beatrice was until a while after which left a lot of suspense. The author had really made it clear how important that faction test were and how rare and dangerous it was to be divergent.

Here is the 2014 film trailer of Divergent