What a great feeling - to finish a book and to embrace the hype! Divergent certainly deserves all the praise it can get.

Although the dystopian theme is a bit overused at the moment, the excellent titles that stand out make it worthwhile. Divergent is multi-layered, action packed and fast paced, making it difficult to put down until you've digested the whole story. It follows Tris, a girl born into the Abnergation faction which focuses on self-lessness and not standing out. The world is segregated into several factions according to their philosophies of living, and the majority of the book follows Tris as she is being initiated into the Dauntless (fearless) faction.

I absolutely loved the character building in this, along with the faction-based living. It just brings about so many insights when it comes to human psychology, like how you can't really fit someone into a box as hard as you try, and how conflicting parts of you can affect your decisions and your behaviour according to your stimulants. The initiation trials and simulations are basically experiments to see whether you perform as expected and if you don't - then you're an outlier. I'm not an expert on psychology or anything - I just have a keen interest in it and Divergent just places a name on the different personality types which makes it all the more fascinating.

While other people may criticise the lack of world-building in this, I found the character building and the references to the different factions enough for that. I'd rather read about the trials, the people within the world, the initiation, and the action than have a historical account on how the world came about and what happened to segregate them into factions. In fact, that is one of the things that draws you into the book - the full-blown action places you right within the world with Tris.

The writing also magnificently conveyed the story well too. It was curt, no overuse of adjectives, and straight to the point. Without all that flowery prose, it's evident that Veronica Roth is a skilled writer, even though this was her first novel. It's refreshing to see a story get straight to the point and still hold you at that level without making you lose interest.

I don't think anyone should compare this to the Hunger Games, just because they are both dystopian. It's evident that they are both quite different and I'm not going down that pathway - of placing things into a box.

I do however have a criticism about the last few chapters - they happened at such a quick pace that it was difficult to grasp what was happening at the rapid speed certain characters were dying. Neither does Tris however, but I suppose that will be dealt with in Insurgent.

All in all, an utterly fantastic read that I couldn't rave enough about. Deserves to be picked up and read straight away - so get onto it if you haven't already!

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